Beating the Level

My son has an Xbox360, it is a remarkable machine that permits us to play a variety of games. As You winnow through the various games you may "beat the level" or acheive a chekc-point, often times this takes a fair amount of perseverence as you get rubbed out again and again. I had switched over to Bear-back, meaning no heel-plate so had gone back to try some of my earlier sends sans eperon one route Quasimodo had gone fairly quickly but another Svengali, both in the Belfry at Vail had resisted my efforts, I had made it to the ice on several frustrating occasions only to get spit off, dang!

Some cold weather blew in last week, Vail seemed feasible again, we were surprised to see just how well the place was holding up. I had gone with Cormac and Adam the place being quite a scene with climbers flying off ice routes making a a racket in general, we retreated to the Belfry. There I noticed immediately a slender dagger had formed on Svengali, although a bit sun-rotted and poorly adhered it occurred to me that if I could make the ice maybe the route would go. Adam led up the pencil sank a couple screws up there for me, I put the draws up and the rope in the draws, then it was show-time.

I ripped through the dry-tooling so fast I hardly noticed, up and out walk feet on inner edge, then a decent move left to right over left Yaniro (figure 4), scrum the foot against the ceiling, grab the left tool up high rock, rock, then WHAMMO out to the lip to an occult divit.

Which I promptly missed. But the pick held long enough for me to crane out and look to see where the hold in fact was, 3 cm to the right so I jumped the tool into the hole, made it. Then left over right Yaniro kick the left front point into the slender dagger while in the Yaniro thus stabilized reach back for the other tool, pirate this tool with grip over my right shoulder, unload the Yaniro and gently kick into the dagger. Now hold breath swing at ice tool sticks, just.

No need to rush now, I won't have the steam for another try so I finesse my way up the hollow icicles pick my shots, take my time I clip one of the screws Adam placed but the route sucks me off up left up a fragile curtain so I twist one in, clip, life begins anew.

So that's that, I beat the level, all those futile attempts to try and climb a whole new way. Two years ago I ran into Jeff Lowe at the Ouray party, he could just stay vertical if he leaned against the counter. "I missed the leashless revolution" he told me staring off into the near distance, his MS having visibly ravaged him. I had first met him in 1995, the year everyone was repeating Octopussy, he was with then wife Terri Eble, still vital, powerful, at the height of his powers. he had watched me do Octopussy wanted to know what sequence I was using, I told him so he went promptly up there and sent the thing handily.

Well I'm not about to miss any revolutions, leashless, spurless or otherwise, if it involves ice tools I am all over it. The Bear-back thing is an immense amount of work until suddenly it becomes the norm then the norm becomes easy, you have beat the level.

Some time after my worse day climbing this winter (one of them) I took this photo, I had just patched up my Fusion tools for another go, was glueing the sole edges of my Dragon Boots back on, a sunny day on my deck I took this photo of my gear.

The gear is me really, battered, patched back up, ready for more.

I need sometimes to remember that mixed is alpinism you need to wait for that alignment of factors, I trained for weeks after my failures, the ice grew there, spring came. I plan to go back but maybe not to that climb this spring, ice cannot be squandered.

Neptune Show March 12

I will be giving my first slide presentation in 10 years at Neptune Mountaineering at 8PM Thursday March 12, this is in Boulder, Colorado. Paying attendees will receive a raffle ticket for the end-of-evening give-away for a three-pack of Ice-Holdz, these are sweet modular holds for indoor ice-climbing and dry-tooling, I would certainly relish having these Holdz on my wall so whomever wins this is going to be one lucky dog!

The show is entitled My Life as an Ice-Climber: From the Bronze Age to the Ice World Cup, I will attempt to discuss in one-hour my personal experience with the evolution of ice-climbing from my early efforts in the 1970s using primitive wood-handled tools on up through my current interests in competition winter climbing and Bear-Back mixed, obviously this is an enormous amount of ground (and ice) to cover so this one promises to be an insightful ride.

Topics to be covered include 1) How climate change is affecting the winter-climbing game; 2) The role of competition climbing in defining the ethical parameters of winter climbing; 3) The myth of "real" climbing (gravity will always whup-yo-ass); 4) The Mixed Euro-scene and why THEY are so good; 5) Indoor Mixed and the future of the winter game.

Attendees are encouraged to stay after the presentation and air their personal views on spurs, leashes, bolts, competitions, rock n' roll accompanied mixed climbing performances and whatever else burns yer butt. Profanity will not be tolerated but otherwise have-at!

You can bring beer so come early and socialize. ALLEZ!!!

Photos: Left; RCC competing in the 2009 Ouray Ice Festival, the shooter is Rob Fullerton. Right; Rob Cotter on Les Droites North Face, Mont Blanc Massif, 1988. The shooter (was) the late Mark Bebie.

Neptune Show: aftermath...

I had exactly 19 people come to my show, that is 19 paying attendees. "They all came to see you!" Susanne assured me, I am really not sure whether to be depressed or elated. I showed 100 slides, there was some hassle with the connector in that I had neglected to bring mine and the one there was incompatible, so off to the Mac store uptown to buy a $19 connector ( I later packaged this one back up and returned this for a refund, I'm sure come one will get excellent use from buying this later.)

The show went well, I was ruthless in selecting slides and staying on message, next time I would like to have more video footage, no small feat given it has been hard to find partners this winter let alone anyone to film. The show is in the box though and may reappear next autumn in some incarnation.

My own impression was that 1) Ice/mixed climbing is at a nadir here in the US, popular interest has diminished greatly in winter climbing, the major climbing publications rarely cover this subject (except to pronounce this type of climbing dead, of course.) 2) There are too many people/athletes/personalities/whatevers touring and giving shows these days, people have slide-show brain-freeze plus the well-reported on climbers (i.e., the ones in the Patagonia catalogs garner the Lion's-share of notoriety. 3) As some one once told me, Americans go to McDonalds because they don't like surprises, they want their Big Mac the exact same way every time, so doing a very different type of show (as opposed to travelogue, slides/music, etc.) isn't going to go over big.

So what's next? I really can't decide if I had a good season or an awful one, I covered very little new ground in terms of routes or areas visited, no truly hard sends, on the other hand I felt like I climbed well, in particular getting a handle on bare-back technique which will come in handy next winter for competitions, if I do any that is. With that said I had some nice days on the hill, did not sustain any injuries, pulled off a few good sends and did not embarrass myself at Ouray, could I have climbed better?

Yes, absolutely, one can always improve of this I am certain...