Another Cody Ice Trip!

Yay, a week or so of working and paying the bills and we are lucky enough to be able to go on another ice climbing trip. It feels good to get into the routine of working a long week and then playing a long week again. What doesn't feel good is a 16hour car ride to Cody. This time we took audio books and tons of podcasts...we are so tired of the radio. We left on Friday, I was lucky enough to get called off from work the night before, and drove all day. Slept in the car and woke up Saturday to go climb Stringer, a 3pitch WI3 climb. The climb was fun! We soloed most of the route and simul-climbed the steeper pitch. At the top of the route after a short hike we climbed Captain Chemo, a single pitch WI4. The sun was shining all day and we were both in our short sleeves and hot!

The South Fork

Stringer

Elisif on Stringer

It was hot!

Soloing parts of Stringer

Captain Chemo

The next day it was off to Cabin Creek to climb Cabin Fever (1 pitch WI4) and Wyoming Wave (4 pitch WI3).

Cabin Fever

Daniel Leading Up Cabin Fever

Pitch 1 Wyoming Wave

Elisif Leading up P1

Pitch 2 WyWave

Elisif on lead P2

We simulclimbed up the third pitch and then soloed the last pitch and headed back down. Great day!

Pitch 4 WyWave

The final climbing day of our trip we headed out of Cody at 0430 in the morning on our way to California Ice in the East Rosebud Canyon of The Beartooths. California Ice is a pretty impressive climb with a continuous headwall of WI4 climbing for a full two pitches that will each stretch your 70m rope. It reminds me just a little bit of the Icefields Parkway up in Canada as far as it's magnitude. The climb ends with a winding WI3 to take you to the notch and the walkoff. We got close to the trailhead and started off our morning with a good warmup of digging the 4runner out of the snow...what's an ice trip without digging you car out at least once! By then, it was most definitely light outside and off we went on the long approach.

Yay, you can finally see it!

Ice Ice Ice

More Ice!

Now here's where the fun begins. There was a confident pair of climbers from Billings that had been approaching with us. They had racked up and chosen the right, leaving us the left. I racked up and started climbing and immediately thought this is going to suck. The dude to my right (who said they climb up to WI5s no problem) was also having issues. The ice needless to say was less than confidence inspiring. Cold and brittle, it would finally pretend to accept an ice pick stick after multiple swings only to leave you wobbling on one tiny tip once you pulled up. It was eating up screws and both of us made belays, him hanging , and me on a ledge well short of the end of the rope. 

First Pitch of the Seige

Daniel continuing to head up

The pair to our right made it to a large ledge system on their second pitch (at this point they were probably at the level where both of our first pitches should have ended) and decided to bail. At this time I was on a hanging belay as the death ice had eaten up all of Dan's screws again. I yelled down to them that I was jealous as they rappelled down to the ground off of a large tree. We were at a point where it just made more sense to keep going rather than building v-threads. The night before I was reading random trip reports on this climb and stumbled on one from 2006 about a group of two parties that had both bailed because the ice was so brittle and scary...omen?

 Needless to say we laid seige but conquered the headwall in another pitch...it was ridiculous. Daniel filleted open his chin with some ice and was bleeding everywhere. Then I was still stuck on a hanging belay and Daniel, though he couldn't help it, was knocking tons of ice down. It was all pretty much hitting me which always hurts but there's nothing you can you do but duck and make yourself as small as possible. Then there was this huge chunk that hit my helmet and made the world turn black for a second! Thankfully it was quick, but I gotta be honest, that freaked me out. Can you imagine getting knocked out while on a hanging belay while belaying your husband? No Thank You.  

Finally the WI3 pitch at the top!

Daniel's flapper on his chin...soon to be superglued!

So California Ice had it's way with us. Despite a split open chin, a headache and a soon to be retired helmet we both were satisfied that we continued the climb. The skies were clear, calm, and sunny and we enjoyed a few minutes at the top to relax (and decided that definitely a top-out slog to the peak was not in our cards for the day!) before we headed back down to the car and the long, dark overnight drive back to Ptown. I was proud of both of us for finishing the climb, proud of myself for climbing the hardest ice I have climbed in a long time without getting pumped, but mostly I am proud of my husband and so impressed on him leading very hard and very steep ice in difficult conditions without batting an eye. I love you!