For the weekend I went to visit Winter. Actually it was pretty cold in Bishop, but it was colder in the winter. I went with Laura up to June Lake where we met with Miguel to go ice climbing. Miguel had an extra set of tools and I borrowed some crampons from Laura since mine were exceedingly dull from tromping around on rocks in the mountains. We were heading up to horsetail falls which involved a fair bit of up. Others had been up there but the trail was buried with fresh snow. This means that if you stayed on the track it was usually ok, but if you stepped off you were liable to post hole. Actually with the post hole queen, that was likely to happen anyway. It was quite warm hiking up a steep hill in the sun, but once we got into the shade and stopped climbing things cooled down rapidly. I think it was around -15 C degrees at the time (according to Miguels pull tab thermometer). Miguel led and I belayed, which meant I couldn't walk around. I did have a number of layers on, but still it was pretty cold. He was going to set up a top-rope off of some anchors in the rocks at the top, but he didn't find them, so he set a belay and I followed him up (actually things were more complicated with a rope swap from a 60 to a 70M etc. but we won't go into all the details of that. This is the first time I ever did any real ice climbing with 2 tools and so on. I think this was only WI 2 or so (water ice 2 = pretty easy). The tools stuck in pretty well and you could keep most of your weight on the feet all the time. Still, I couldn't always tell what were good placements, and it was hard to get the tools out if I really sunk them in. Cleaning the ice screws was a bit of a pain too. I was doing pretty well when my left crampon popped off in a steep section. Luckily I only had a few more moves to a lower angled spot where I could put it back on. Still, things were pretty exciting trying to jam the crampon hanging off of my ankle into the ice and then stand on the edge of it while moving up the other foot.
| |
|---|
 |
|---|
At the top there were some clear windows through the ice where you could see water running beneath. It was sort of cool and sort of alarming. At the top I set up to belay and brought up Laura while Miguel searched for anchors. Eventually he found some old bolts and once we had replaced the old cords on them we rapped down to a tree and then back to the start. This sounds like a straightforward process, but every step took longer with gloves and when you took them off for something like tieing new cord to the anchor your fingers got cold fast. At this point it was quite cold - I don't know the temperature, but if I breathed in through my nose the hairs froze together.
Back at the bottom of the climb we quickly packed things up, dug out our headlamps (it was starting to get dark), and started down. Did I mention it was cold? We had one more rap past a steep section we climbed on the way up, and then we just followed our tracks back down trying to avoid the holes where we plunged through the snow before. Once we got down into a more sheltered location in the trees it felt warmer, even though it was still quite cold. We had dinner at the Tiger Bar opting for the calorie dense heat producing chicken fried steak. Then Miguel headed home and Laura and I went to the obsidian dome pullout where we set up to sleep in the Truck of Fun (TOF). Initially I was fine in my -5 sleeping bag, but then I woke up with a cold hip where it compressed the sleeping pad. Then later a cold elbow where it was against the side of the truck... This continued on and off for the rest of the night, sometimes it was a drop of icy water hitting my face, sometimes a cold foot or other body part. When it finally did get light I could see some large feathery ice crystals formed all around breathing hole. Unfortunately I had to destroy them all to get out. There were also plenty of feathery crystals on the roof inside the truck. Getting up was a slow and painful process as it was quite cold. It was an ordeal putting on my icy boots and so on. We were starting to get some good heating from the sun when someone parked next to us and blocked most of it. DOH.
 |
|---|
 |
|---|
Eventually we rallied and got our ski gear together and set off skinning up the trail. Plenty of people had been ahead of us, so it was quite groomed - there would be no post holing here. Eventually we headed off the "road" and followed a single skin track up towards chicken wing peak (I think). As we got higher the views got better, but the wind picked up and it got cold again. After a stop for a bit of a lunch break out of the wind we headed up the final bit to the summit, but the wind picked up something fierce, so we headed down there. It was pretty fun skiing in the powder through the trees, although I was scared I was going to hit a tree. The snow was deep enough that especially with my short short skis it was easy to keep my speed in check. In fact when the angle lessened I was trying to maintain momentum. I managed not to wipe out although there were some close calls. We had to shuffle and walk a bit before the final downhill back to the road trail. From there it was only slightly downhill back to the truck- not enough to be able to just coast.
 |
|---|
 |
|---|
We loaded back up and headed back to town to rejuvenate with some fresh hot chipotle shrimp chowder at the moose lodge. It was a little hotter than it needed to be as far as spice goes, but it did warm us up. After a few more days of cold in Bishop things have warmed up again - warm enough to boulder in shorts and a t-shirt in the sun.
 |
|---|
Winter is fun to visit, but I am glad I don't have to live there.