Working a little backward here, but here are some of the pictures from my weekend ice climbing trip (still upset that I lost most of my photos from last year’s trip, so here are some backups!)
Warming up on my first climb
Arms feeling pumped already
Chuck belaying at the Opening Curtains
Chuck walking on thin ice – Lake Superior
Walking on (frozen) water, Lake Superior – note the ice fishing shanties in the background!
Ok, initial judgment withdrawn (thankfully): the kid didn’t turn out so bad after all; he was independent and self-sufficient, and quite pleasant. I must also remind myself not to be too hard on him; if it weren’t for all the people who’d shown so much kindness and generosity to me when I was still an undergrad, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to go out and do so much. And even though he turned up quite late, traffic was surprisingly smooth – even more so for a Friday night. Nonetheless, the drive was still long though; we only arrived at 1am ET.
But, that aside, we had some AWESOME climbing this weekend. This trip marked my third Munising Ice Festival (Links to Trip I 2006 and Trip II 2007), and it was by far the best temperatures and conditions for ice climbing. Temperatures remained just below freezing, so it was nice and cosy even just hanging out at the base of the falls watching/belaying (one guy even climbed without his shirt on).
My first climb was a little shaky and gingerly due to my loose boots – I wasn’t about to have my boot fall off, crampon and all, again like at Sandstone! But after I tightened them, and consciously reminded myself to watch my footing and get a solid hold with the pick instead of trying to run up the wall, my technique steadily improved and I even managed some clean climbs on my last few tries (we managed 7 for the day)! Definitely psyched about that, though I still don’t think that I’ll ever take up leading on ice.
In between the climbs, James Loveridge (who works for Black Diamond testing gear) and Steven Koch (one of the most accomplished snowboarders/mountaineers in the world) gave us a 1.5 hour presentation on how to use ice screws, set up anchors in ice, and gave pointers on techniques. It was, in climber speak, “super fun” and “super rad”, and really quite cool to see up close the techniques used high up on the mountains.
In the evening, after fresh hot showers back at our cottage, we headed to Sydney’s, the sponsor bar for the festival, for a couple rounds of lucky draws and two presentations, including one by Koch. Alas, I didn’t win another backpack this time around… but Koch’s presentation alone was well worth it. He entertained us with hair-raising stories of one of his snowboarding/ice climbing trips, when he had the unfortunate meeting with a series of avalanches. His delivery was impeccable, and comic timing spot on, and had us variously gasping and roaring with incredulous laughter at his exploits.
Pulled from the festival program, Steven’s bio:
Stephen Koch is one of the most accomplished snowboard mountaineers in the world. At 39, Stephen has snowboarded more than 40 first descents, many of which have never been repeated. His list of accomplishments certainly shows the mastery of and dedication to his sport, which includes his being the first and only person to snowboard on all the Seven Summits, the highest peak on each continent.
In Stephen’s ongoing Quest for the finest lines on a mountain, he continues to pull off extremely difficult and challenging alpine climbs. When he began snowboarding at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and throughout the Tetons in 1987, he used climbing as a means to access snowboard descents. His solo ascents on the Grand Teton are recognized as extraordi- nary achievements. In 1995, he soloed Mt. Kenya’s Diamond Couloir and in 1997 he soloed the north face of the Matterhorn in winter. On Kilimanjaro, after first guiding clients to the sum- mit, Stephen completed the first solo ascent of the fearsome Breach Icicle.In June 2001, Stephen and partner Marko Prezelj completed ‘Light Traveler,’ arguably the most difficult route on Denali, and the first new route climbed in a single push – with no bivouac gear, in an incredibly fast 48 hours. And in January, 2004 Stephen and partner Mark Newcomb completed the First Winter Grand Traverse of the Teton Range, known as the “Last Great Problem” of mountaineering in the United States.
Stephen remains enthusiastic about continuing to push himself as a climber and snowboarder by continuing to pioneer ascents and snowboarding descents around the world. His appreciation of movement in the mountains might best be summed up by this quote: “The snowboard track is the most aesthetic and ephemeral passage that man can leave on a mountain, but in the end, the snowboard is just one more tool to help me do what I love to do: ascend and descend some of the most beautiful terrain on earth.”
A touch of frost bite?
Well now, I don’t really think I have frost bite, or even frost nip. A quick check online suggests that I might have trench foot/immersion foot though my feet were quite dry the whole time. Cold, but dry. Two days after I went ice climbing in Minnesota in -10 degree farenheit conditions, my feet are still feeling numb and tingly. Not a good sign eh?
So last Friday, Chuck, Bruce, Jeff and I made the 7.5 hour trek to Sandstone, Minnesota, for some ice climbing. I’d wanted to camp out, but thankfully Jeff vetoed my idea and booked us a room at the nearby Travelodge instead. Temperatures were much, much lower than I expected at -10 degrees. Eep.
Nonetheless, Sandstone was fun, and I think both Bruce and Jeff (both ice virgins) enjoyed themselves. As a plus, I got to introduce the boys to Kami, who is one of the coolest people around – she entertained us with crazy stories of winter diving, skating upside down under water across the ice, and was sweet enough to procure us goody-bags from the evening’s slideshow when the boys voted to go to Mall of America instead.
Man made waterfalls – Kami told us there were fewer ice falls to climb this year because one of the organizers moved to Florida
Chuck and I in the foreground, watching Bruce’s inaugural attempt on the ice
Me, showing off the ice picks while Jeff climbs in the background
Chuck on the ice
Some random dude attempting rock and ice climbing, the ultimate form of climbing
Some literature I had to look up regarding frost bite vs. frost nip and immersion foot…
I hate flying. Hate, with a capital H. I would rather drive anytime. Say, for instance, I have to go to Detroit (which I had nearly had to, once). I’d rather drive that four hours, rather than take a supposed 45 min flight which might not even take off till hours later, due to inclement weather, airplane malfunction, or the stupidest reason of all – the air stewardess was late getting to work. Even then, there’s still the driving to the airport parking, the shuttle ride to the airport, the taking off your shoes and showing the world your toiletries when you go through customs. Bleah.
Anyway, the reason for the rant is that I had to wait at the Colorado airport for 6 hours for my flight. We arrived at noon, since Julia’s flight was at 130pm, and I couldn’t get onto any earlier flights. In the past week alone, I reckon I’ve sat in airports for nearly 15 hours.
Complaints aside, we (Julia, Vivie, Valerio, Nick, Nelson, Kim and I) had a good weekend in Colorado, save a major incident – Julia fractured a rib. While we were on the slopes Saturday, some idiot lost control of his skies and plowed directly into her. His impact was so great that she keeled over immediately. At first, we thought it was just the wind that had been knocked out of her, but after a minute passed, she still hadn’t moved.
Nelson, Nick, and I, who were skiing with her, were in a panic. Nelson asked around for a cellphone, and a skiier who had stopped whipped out one, but then we didn’t know what number to call. Luckily, there were a couple of ski patrol dudes nearby, so they radioed for help. A first aid team arrived within minutes, and they quickly and efficently transferred her onto a stretcher whereupon one of them skied down the slopes with her. The three of us tried to follow behind, in our clumsy manuevers, but we quickly lost sight of him, sleigh and all.
Some x-rays later, we found out that she had fractured her 9th rib. Poor girl – she’ll be out the rest of the climbing season. 
Plus extreme discomfort for the next 6 weeks until it heals.
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All in all, I think everyone had a great time. Breckenridge is a delightful little town set at the foothills of the Breckenridge ski resort. The narrow Main Street is lined with outdoor and ski shops (any outdoorsman’s haven), as well as dozens of cosy restaurants and bars. However, except for Friday evening where I spent a couple hours at an Irish pub waiting for the others to be done with skiing/boarding (I’d elected to sleep in and then go snow shoeing instead), we did not go out for drinks/meals and cooked instead.
Julia had found us a spacious two bedroom apartment, complete with a fireplace and fully stocked kitchen. So, rather than head out into the cold again after a hard day in the snow, we bought food enough for breakfasts and dinners. Hehe, this was actually the first time this year that I’ve attempted to fulfill my new year resolution to cook.
Menu
Friday night: Julia and I cooked pasta
Saturday morning: Kim and Julia made scrambled eggs and hash browns
Saturday dinner: Vivie and Kim cooked chicken rice and chicken curry for our reunion dinner – DELICIOUS
Sunday morning: Kim and I cooked scrambled eggs, hash browns and sausages
Sunday evening: Nelson, Vivie and I cooked rice, bah kut teh and pasta for dinner
All washed down with wine and six pack beers. And I found out that Colorado has some stupid 3-2 rule on Sunday. Liquor stores aren’t allowed to operate then, and supermarkets can only sell alcoholic drinks of 3.2%. Bleah.
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Unlike the others who skiied/boarded the three days we were in Breckenridge, I only skiied a day. Well, half a day actually, because Julia got injured. I had a blast though – and am so tempted to try get in another ski trip before the end of the season.
On Sunday, I went ice climbing – it was awesome, especially considering the balmy temperatures; a good 60 degrees above Munising’s -30 degrees with wind chill. The trek up to the ice fall was brutal though. The snow was so soft, powdery and deep that I sunk up to my waist in certain sections. And it was so steep (incline of 70-80 degrees at some parts) that often, for every step I took, I slid a few steps back. It was hot (I was perspiring so much in my jacket), tiring, and extremely frustrating. Eventually though, after much pointers from Brian (my guide, who, incidentally, has starred in a couple of climbing movies), I got the hang of taking tiny steps with my toes and advancing up that way. I have a newfound respect for all the mountaineering folks. Happily, I managed to get down the slope in a much shorter time – 10 minutes vs. the exhausting 1.5 hour hike up. We just sat on our asses and slid down the paths we’d created. Sort of like a snowy waterslide.
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Aye. So that was that. Our short but extremely packed President’s Day weekend in Breckenridge, Colorado. It was great to meet up with Vivie and Julia again, and I really enjoyed meeting Vivie’s friends. Hopefully, we can make this an annual trip (there’s talk of Whistler next year!). It’s too bad I didn’t get to meet up with Loiseaurebelle who’s working there, that lucky girl, but there’ll be other chances, hopefully. 
Tracey navigating the ice column
For the second year running, Pauline and I went to Munising for the annual ice climbing festival. This time, Mike, Chuck, Roger and Tracey came with us. And this time, we ditched our camping plans. It was far too cold for a comfortable pitch – even we’re not that crazy. With windchill, temperatures went down to -30 degrees F, or -34 degrees C if you will. Well, we did have some shelter from the wind where we climbed, but -34 degrees C carry more bragging rights yah?
Before I forget, I need to publicly thank Angela for her super early (about 4-5 months in advance) birthday gift of a thermos flask. It was MAGNIFICENT! Pauline and Tracey each brought a thermos too, but within hours, their contents were ice cold – Pauline’s coffee became slushy. My thermos however, worked beautifully. The hot chocolate was still PIPING HOT at the end of the day. Don’t know what we would have done without it… finish my hip flask of whiskey I guess.
Highlights
- We took part in a raffle in the evening “show and tell” (sponsored athletes sharing their crazy-ass mountaineering photos and stories) and Mike and I both won. He won a synthetic jacket from Patagonia ($265) and I won the last raffle of the evening, a Gregory ISO day pack ($99). Hehe, of course I was psyched. Before the draw, I kept saying, I’d love a backpack, or a pair of mittens (which, incidentally, I think are waay better than gloves. It’s helluva difficult to jam your fingers in).
- I somehow managed to bust my knees again. Both of them. Bleah. The short but super steep trails up to the climbs were hard on them I guess. At least I could still climb though. But I think I need to start getting serious about treating them. My Colorado ski trip is up in two weeks. Bleah.
- It was so cold, the ice was brittle. We almost always had to hack a few times before the ice stopped shattering and the picks caught. But I think we’ve got the hang of it. I’m hoping that I get to go again before the season’s over. Pauline might be going in a couple weeks, but that’s when I’d be in Colorado. Aye. Maybe the weekend of the 24th? That’s my only open window for a while.
- It was great to finally meet Kami again, after so many missed attempts. She invited us out to climb early this morning, and offered to show us how to set up top ropes with the ice screws. Unfortunately, all six of us slept through our alarm clocks. Yes, all three alarm clocks. Bleah.
- Lake Superior was frozen over. Solid. There were rows of ‘out houses’ half a mile out on the lake itself, ice fishing sheds more like. After climbing on Saturday, Chuck, Mike and I braved the stinging snow and wind and walked out onto the ice to take pictures. There was a couple who were folding up their makeshift shed (which was actually nice and toasty since they had a propane heater turned on), so we ventured over to look at their catch. That was pretty cool. I’ve always wanted to try ice fishing. Doubt I’d have the patience, but it would have been fun to try at least once. 
Pauline!
Fresh catch!
The ice fishermen dragging their portable ice shanty
Mike by an ice fishing hut
Just to give you an idea of the conditions…
Opening curtains
Tracey looking very cold
Look at all the snow…
Pauline had signed us up into two groups: Aza and Andy for the men’s intro, and us two for the women’s intro. Because we only had one mini van shuttling everyone back and forth, the men got to go out first. On a side note, it seems to me that the alpine world – or so the presentors so elitely called themselves, is very testosterone driven. The guy who got up to introduce one female presentor the night before, was blunty disparaging when referring to the women who tried to style themselves as alpinists. That irked me a little, but not as much as that female presentor who not only did not attempt to correct him, but helped perpetuate that image with her airhead-like talk, “So my friend and I randomly decided we were going to climb a mountain, and so just picked one from the cover of a climbing magazine that we thought looked really pretty, I mean, what do we know, we’re just two girls… and us two girls, knowing nothing, we happily picked the north face of the mountain because it was facing the sun…”
And yes, I do know that I’m running on a really side note here, but I was just getting started on my thread. I’m no feminist, but I do feel strongly about people specially highlighting the achievements of a person just because she’s female. Like, it’s amazing that she managed to climb Mt. Everest, because she’s a woman. Utterings like this do not glorify an individual’s achievement, rather, it implicitly belittles his or her background. If I ever climbed Mt. Everest, please let it not be said that I was the first Singaporean woman to do it (although that’s an impossibility, since I don’t have such sights, and there’s already a 2008 Singapore WOMEN’S Everest team), nor that I managed such a feat despite being only 5 feet tall…
Better get off my podium and go back to raving about ice climbing…
So anyway, the women’s group ended up hanging out at our meeting point for a lot longer than necessary, but on the plus side, it afforded us to mingle around a little. Got to meet some really fun folks, and even exchanged contacts with one for future trips.
Ice Festival 2006
After much anticipation, we finally got to the site. The short trek up the hill to where the waterfalls were was almost as tiring as the climbing itself. Because I hadn’t put on my crampons, I had much difficulty trying to find my footing. I’d try to step up a foot the slope, and then slide back down two feet. At one point, I actually just threw my pack and ice pick down onto the ice, and just sprawled onto the ground in frustration. Then of course, I felt totally stupid. If I couldn’t handle the slopes, how was I going to climb?
ME!
There you see, I did make it eventually. But whew, ice climbing is really quite strenuous! I’m probably doing it all wrong, and of course, I sat in my harness a lot instead of free climbing, but ice climbing felt less technical than rock climbing. I wasn’t really attempting any fancy moves other than some desperate stemmings; it was more of a raise your pick, swing, stick type of thing. Just to give you a visual of how the movements are supposed to be, the Canadians apparently have this one saying, “Stick like you poo, and swing like you screw.”
Pauline on the waterfall
But it was all good, particularly after I started getting the hang of the motions after my initial attempt. It was an excellent way to keep warm too, for it was freezing cold out, such that I’d start shivering after I’d been stationary too long, and such that I wasn’t even half the camera whore I normally am…
Me again, finally getting the hang of how to use the picks
Our awesome belayer, Kamila, who did not climb at all that day, but patiently belayed us one by one up the ice
Can you tell, I’m totally smitten? If I could ice climb every week, I wouldn’t mind a perpetual winter here in the midwest! I’m already plotting a mountaineering/ice climbing course in Colorado sometime this year, instead of my previous dream plan of going hiking in Hawaii…
After my leg of driving, I relegated to the back seat and intermittenly read and dozed off.
As usual, the growing pressure in my bladder dragged me out of a fitful nap. Opening my eyes, I was startled to find that we had left behind the endless fields of dry, tired yellow brush. Sometime, between one shut eye and the next, we had entered Narnia.
The lands around us – even the road – were blanketed in a thick, glorious white, a fluffly pure white that I have not seen in Chicago this winter.
Rows of Christmas trees lined the road, their sturdy pine branches seeming to bend under the heavy weight of the snow. I was excited – we all were. There was no more doubt that there wouldn’t be enough snow/ice for us this weekend. As it were, it was starting to snow out – heavily. The howling winds churned up those fat wet flakes that had just settled onto the ground, and sent them twirling in mad spirals in front of us, around us, such that visibility quickly fell to a mere 10 feet.
Our planned 7.5 hour drive was stretching out into a 11 hour marathon before us. No matter though, we were still excited; I forgot my usual attempts to spare the others from my singing and started belting out all the camping songs I could remember.
Finally, finally, we pulled into the parking lot by our trail head. Remembering the ranger’s backcountry camping directions, we each shouldered our camping gear and set off on the trail to find a nice sheltered spot to pitch tent. The wind had by now picked up, and screeched and yowled while sending snow flying directly into our eyes. With bent heads, we struggled our way across the foot of snow, slowly raising one leg and sinking it knee-deep into the snow, and then even more slowly raising the other to step forward. Balance is key, especially with a heavy backpack on your back; doing regular workouts on a Stairmaster helps definitely helps too.
We found a more sheltered spot as the daylight drew to a close. Hastily, we worked in unison to set up our two tents. Because the snow was too loosely packed to support all our weight, we had to spend a good 5 minutes making snow angels to try pack the snow together.
With the tents both up and ready, we trekked back the 1.5 miles to the car, hurrying to get ourselves registered for the Ice Festival.
Because we only just arrived, we had missed out a whole day’s of climbing – and in line with that, socializing. Everyone else at the Ice Festival seemed to know one another, and while they waited for the talks and slide presentations to start, they mingled around and exchanged stories about their fun day on the ice. Naturally, we were envious, and only became more so when the slide shows started. The organizers had managed to gather a couple professional climbers – from outfitters like Mountain Madness no less! – to share with us their alpine experiences. Quite a surreal experience really. So far, I’ve only read of their exploits in books; it was quite another thing to have them standing in front of me, enthusiastically recollecting how they’d survived seven days without food just so they could try pioneer this new route in the French Alps, how they’d work summers on the Alaskan trawlers, just so they could tag some unclimbed peaks in the harsh Alaskan landscape.
We stayed for only a couple presentations, and skipped the rest – it was already 10pm Michigan time, and besides the couple beers we’d knocked down, we hadn’t eaten in hours. It was a good call too. It had been snowing steadily outside, and in a couple hours, there was already a half foot of snow in the carpark. My poor TSO’s really not built for such conditions – Aza and I had to get out a couple of times to push the car while Andy played with the accelerator…
Trying to find our way back to our tents too, was quite an excursion. Because our trail was right by the lake, the wind was at its most ferocious there. Most of the trail was completely covered – and along some sections a good 2 feet of snow drift obscured our way and we had to sort of bulldoze our way through it. Thankfully, fearing that such a situation might occur, I’d taken some pains to memorize our route, and so we were able to traverse our way back to the tent without too much difficulty.
We rock!
Perhaps because we were all starving, we worked together seamlessly to get our cooking going. While Pauline and Andy busied around our designated kitchen area, Aza and I started building a wall of ice around it, to protect our stove from the wind:
Building our own Great Wall
After my last winter camping experience with Paul, Minghao etc, I was a little leery of trying to warm up even pre-cooked pasta. Happily though, Pauline had bought us instant chili, and mmm, those were really good stuff. Even better, was dessert: Canadian maple syrup-toffee on snow! Heh, it took us a couple attempts before we finally figured that we needed to get the syrup really warm before we could pour it on the snow and have it solidify instantly.
I was dying to warm up some glogg, but we were all stuffed from all the food and beer, and starting to freeze, so we quickly packed up – i.e. kicked snow over our kitchen and stuffed handfuls of snow into our pots and pans – and retreated into our tent. Can I just say again for posterity – I LOVE MY REI ZEPHYR SLEEPING BAG! I was totally snug in my little cocoon, nevermind the sub zero temperatures, nevermind the roar of the wind outside pretending to be a jet plane. Within minutes, I was out cold, in my little dream world of climbing on ice.
Fastfoward to 6am the next morning. Andy’s alarm clock went off, same time my bladder was rousing me up from sleep again. Much to my relief, the tent was pretty good insulation from the cold, so unzipping myself from my bag wasn’t the torture I’d so dreaded.
What can I say – the weekend’s going to be fun, exciting, and terribly tiring and stressful at the same time.
At 4am tomorrow morning, I will wake up, haul my backpack stuffed with winter clothes, tent, sleeping bag aaaand bottles of glogg and maple syrup liquor, and pick my other passengers up. Then we will begin the 7 hours drive to UP, or Upper Peninsula Michigan, for the Ice Festival. In between, I will also have to cram in as much studying as possible, which positively puts a damper on the whole situation. But it’s a once a year event that I might not possibly recreate next year when these climbing buddies have scattered to the winds, soooo, no choice but to re-attempt the feat I tried in Argentina last year – study in between all the fun.
To be honest, I don’t really know what our itinerary is going to be. Besides offering the use of my gear and car, I haven’t planned the trip at all – Pauline did all the grunt work. All I do know is, Sunday morning at 9am will see us hanging precariously over the iced over waterfall, trying vainly to strike a pose for poterity (and possible posters for our walls) while also trying to not fall. And then it’ll be another mad drive back, in time for me to go to bed and wake up refreshed to face another long week at work.
So laters, and see you next week.
