excursion to Tokepah Falls

Shortly after I wrote my last post, my friend Ronnie from SMR called me and invited me to go ice climbing the next morning. Since the following day was the Superbowl, we agreed on a 5 am departure time, which meant I had to get up at 4. I didn't care, I was excited at the opportunity to do try a new outdoor sport.

We met up, drove an hour and a half or so into the park, divvied up the ropes, crampons, and other gear, and set off on the 1.7 mile approach trail. We opted to leave the snowshoes in the truck since it was a fairly well established trail and it hadn't snowed in a while. This proved to be a wise decision all except for the last 150 or so yards from the trail to the base of the cliff, where we were continually "post-holing," which is the technical name for sinking way deep in the snow. That final section probably took a good 20 minutes, since we'd take a step or two, fall in up to our hips, and have to dig ourselves back out.

It turned out that the condition of the ice was somewhat less than ideal, not because it hasn't been cold enough, but because there hasn't been enough snow this season. There were still sections of good ice though, so we proceeded to the top, set up an anchor, and rappelled down. When we reached the bottom we discovered that all the good ice was off to one side or the other, and our anchor would have to be moved. No problem, except we didn't have all that much time. I belayed Ronnie as he finessed a rather tricky climb. Several times the rope got hung up on the ice, and he had to downclimb to free it. What made it risky was the fact that because he wasn't climbing directly below the anchor, any slip would have resulted in what's called a "pendulum fall" (yep, pretty much what it sounds like =).

I think part of the reason why climbers are such a close-knit community is that they regularly trust each other with their lives. I belayed Ronnie, he belayed me. If either of us had fallen, we would have been depending entirely on the other to arrest the fall. I'm not trying to overly dramatize this, it's just a neat thing, in my opinion. And don't worry, Mom- we prayed for protection, and wore helmets.

By the time Ronnie set up a new anchor and rappelled back down we were sorta running out of time, but he still let me climb a decent section of ice a few times. It was a great introduction to the sport.

It's hard to tell the scale from this picture, but the face you're looking at here is well over a hundred feet. I didn't get any better pictures of us or the ice, because we were tied up most of the time. When conditions are ideal, that part with the icicles will be a solid wall of ice the whole way down to the bottom.

This is Ronnie on our approach, almost at the top.

This was the view directly across from where we were.

The scenery was just awesome.