FEATURED POST

Jason offers Sarah a hand crossing one of many rivers.

Back in college when snow dumped in Bellingham, we would stealthily conceal dining hall trays under our big winter coats and, sneaky-like, tip-toe them out. If you haven’t tried it yet, a plastic lunch tray makes a fantastic sled for flying fast down any slope, gradual or steep. The steeper the better of course. Something about that rigid polycarbonate surface made even the lightest wisp of a college coed fly!

Wearing plastic mountaineering boots for the first time had a similar feeling.  I didn’t quite get that same sledding-induced thrill though as I carefully negotiated my way across slippery river rocks and high flowing water. My body isn’t quite so quick to heal after minor impacts with rocks, trees, and other objects like people, as it was when I was a gumby-like, sledding 19year old.

Our trip out to the Coleman Glacier with Jason Wheeler was not only my first trip in plastics and crampons, but also my first time wielding an ice axe and first time scaling a wall on an icy serac.

Getting the 411 from Jason

My outdoor experiences are fairly well rounded, though I would never claim to be an expert. I grew up climbing trees and graduated to  rock climbing a number of years ago.  I’ve snowshoed plenty, skied for years, scrambled, hiked and backpacked a lot.  My comfortable level doing most outdoor activities is fairly high and I felt all these experiences would give me a bit of a leg up on learning to ice climb.

This day, however, was a serious ego check. Crampons are not nearly as intuitive as I expected – I still don’t get how to tork my ankles when traversing a slope. Most of the day was spent awkwardly crab-walking from climb to climb. And despite Jason’s incredibly patient, thorough instruction, dropping my heels while depending on the teeniest crampon teeth to hold me to the ice seemed entirely counter-intuitive. Brain was not computing the message to feet without serious internal struggle against my instincts. And my rock experience didn’t help me grasp moving with tools pumping out my arms almost instantly.

I am awed by Jason and his ice climbing brethren,  who climb not only smooth, straight, uncomplicated ice, but anything mixed, or overhanging – how does the brain and body compute that into upward motion? Maybe its magic and I  haven’t found the pixie dust yet.

Lauren, fine-tuning her skills.

ChitChitTHWOP! Towards the end of the afternoon, despite tired arms from overgripping, I began to find purchase on the ice with my tools on my last climb. “Perhaps I’ll actually get this,” I thought as I sipped my rum n’tea for a bit of warmth before we descended the glacier. On the way down, standing a little straighter, nose-over-toes, stepping a little more confidently, less tension in my arms gripping the ax, I began to feel like maybe this plastics-crampon-axe-glacier thing really wasn’t all that hard.

The light softened on the ridge tops and crampons came off as we exited the glacier, hitting the trail back to the easy comfort of a car seat. A day on the ice in crampons seemed to make the hike out in only plastics feel easy. Easy! I continued confident new thoughts…”someday I might be good at this. And maybe, I’ll start climbing real water ice! And go to places like Banff! And Canmore! And..” PHWOOOP!

It only takes an instant. Feet flying above my head, butt very solidly smacking into the dirt and snow with my ego bruised the worst, daydreams of Canadian ice melted as fast as a popsicle in a heat wave in hawaii. Perhaps I’ll stick with the plastic lunch trays for now.

Our team; myself, Jason, Alex, Sarah, Sven, Lauren, and Nathan