My first ice season in Washington is coming to a close! The slushy, drippy columns of “ice” still clinging to rock here and there are turning into slushier, drippier columns, signifying the end of a banner season seeking vertical adventure on “frozen” water. As these melting events usher in the end of winter, I feel compelled to share a few lessons I’ve picked up along the way to ensure a successful season -here are my ten tips for ice-climbing in Washington State:- Keep an eye on the weather
You’re gonna want to keep a close watch on the notoriously capricious PNW weather. Luckily, there’s a myriad of weather sites dedicated to tracking and forecasting weather in the big hills -invaluable assets as you plan your trip. Start each morning in front of your computer by opening each one in a separate tab in between Facebook and ESPN, comparing conflicting data across sites, and moving on to checking your email more confused than ever. Rain? Snow? Tropical paradise? Cyclone? Each more likely than the last! You won’t be able to actually commit to a trip until the very last second, when finally your plethora of tabs confirm that the temperature will hover right above freezing, granting you a marginal chance of encountering some solidified H2O. Sounds stressful? Naaaaah.
- You’re not gonna climb any ice
This is the big one -don’t actually expect to climb any ice. Remember, ambition is the enemy of success. If you define success in ice climbing as actually climbing ice, you’re bound to fail. If you define success as really, really wanting to climb ice, trudging in snowshoes for hours through a winter wonderland as you chase the vague rumor of a juicy flow that might be in “condish” this time of year, only to discover a fully running waterfall and having to trudge back while dragging your two gigantic, ice-climbing blue balls, then success is 100% guaranteed!
- Tell everyone you’re going ice-climbing
Shout it from the rooftops. Tell your friends, your colleagues, your family, your doctor during a physical, your priest during confession, and just about anyone who’ll agree to even remotely listen. Post about it on social media. Bonus points if you announce you’ll be “sending the gnar” or “crushing ice” and divulge your specific objective, which you’ve heard from a reliable source on a Facebook forum is “so in.” Nothing beats the follow-up conversation when your friend asks you about the climb after a frustrating weekend spent trudging! “Oh, we didn’t get to climb. It was too warm. Nice snowshoeing though.” If you like a bucket of lemon juice poured into your gaping wound every Monday morning, then this is right for you.
- Ice climbing gear is a great investment
Why keep disposable income in your bank account when you can have it sitting around in the form of ice tools and a set of screws? Everyone knows sound investing is the way to independent wealth, and nothing screams wealth louder than a bunch of metal gear designed for the specific pursuit of ascending frozen waterfalls. Worried about pricing? At $300 per ice tool, $80 per screw, $600 for a pair of boots, and $150 for a good pair of crampons, it’s a bargain! You can’t afford not to get a kit. Not in this economy. Plus, the money’s a lot safer in the form of gear in your closet than dollars in the bank. Banks get robbed. How many times has your gear closet been the target of an old school western-style hold-up? Exactly.
- Take an avalanche course
Not satisfied with the amount of reasons you won’t be able to climb any ice this winter? Take an avie course! Your newfound knowledge will open up a whole new range of climbs, from which you’ll immediately be scared off by the prospect of suffocating beneath several metric tons of snow rushing at you faster than a galloping horse! Not to mention further investment opportunities in the forms of a beacon, probe, and shovel...they only retail at $400! Time to make some room in your inviolable gear closet!
- Turn your approaches into hikes
Is it still an approach if you don’t get to climb? Let’s get Webster’s to lend us a hand! Approach: verb. To draw closer to, to come very near to. Oops, guess there has to be a destination for it to be an approach. Oh well, just tell everyone you went hiking. Instead of saying you broke trail through four feet of snow at six in the morning on a Sunday morning just to discover yet another unclimbable flow, say that you went for a beautiful sunrise hike to a gorgeous waterfall. Seriously, it’s all about how you sell it.
- Take care of your equipment
Functional equipment is paramount to a successful day out. How do you expect to be able to walk miles to a somewhat frozen waterfall, take one good look at it, say “there’s no way in hell I’m leading this sweating piece of shit, this looks more like a waterslide than an ice climb, I don’t want to die young,” and begin the long march back to your car if your tools and screws aren’t properly sharpened? You think you’ll be able to stay at home smoking pot and watching Netflix all weekend and bitch to your friends that it’s fifty degree in January if your crampons get rusty because you haven’t dried them properly? Well...yeah. But that’s not the point.
- Take advantage of the beta
Good beta is the key to any successful climb! Unless you’re a badass putting up FAs and charting new territory for the rest of us mortals, it’s always good to have comprehensive knowledge of any new route you attempt. Not satisfied with the one ice-climbing guidebook available for Washington? Luckily, there are literally dozens of fellow ice-climbers in Washington (perhaps even as many as a dozen dozens), each one more willing than the last to share beta via Facebook groups or shady online forums. Feel a little sketched out getting your beta from strangers over the internet? Come on, don’t be a such a wuss -if you can’t trust the internet, who can you trust?
- Try alpine ice
Need a cooler story to tell your friends? Take up alpine ice climbing! The ice in the mountains is always in condition. Too bad you’ll never get anywhere near it. Avalanche conditions, bad weather, dangerously high winds, rock fall -these are just some of the vagaries of the big hills, which will eternally keep you away from even reaching the base of any alpine route. But hey, instead of saying it was too warm to climb, now you get to look off into the distance like a grizzled mountain man and say: “the weather came in -we had to turn back if we wanted to survive.” That sounds badass...now just cross your fingers that people actually believe you.
- Head north if you actually want to climb
Seriously, just go to fucking BC. Marble Canyon is so dope.
