By Ray Sikorski
(This article originally appeared in the March 2007 issue of the Tributary magazine.)
The 2006-2007 ice climbing season was akin to the movie Deliverance: One hell of a wilderness outing, marred somewhat by the prospect of banjo-wielding psycho hillbillies doing unspeakable things to your friends.
The season was one of the best in recent memory. “There was ice in places that some people have never seen ice before,” said Joe Josephson, author of Winter Dance, the seminal guide to ice climbing in Southwest Montana. Routes like Narcolepsy, Airborne Ranger, and even the aptly named Smear Today Gone Tomorrow made appearances, as well as routes that had never been seen before. On top of that, an inordinately lame early snow season made the normally treacherous drive to Hyalite Canyon’s frozen waterfalls a relative breeze right into February. Those unwilling to sacrifice their boards to the rocks on the ski hills took to Hyalite instead, with the Grotto Falls parking area filling up right up through Super Bowl Sunday.
But then, of course, was the specter of the banjo-wielding psycho hillbillies — in the form of the U.S. Forest Service — ruining all the fun. Area ice climbers had grown accustomed to negotiating the unplowed, rutted road from the Hyalite Dam to the Grotto Falls trailhead till their trucks and Subys just couldn’t take it anymore, which some years could be as late as March. The Gallatin National Forest Travel Plan, released in December, threatened to change all that. The plan, currently under appeal, proposed gating the road at the southernmost point of plowing on the first on each year, requiring climbers to ski, snowmobile, or walk a minimum of three-and-a-half miles to the ice.
“There’s not many people with the ability, gear, or gumption to ski or walk or whatever it takes from the dam,” Josephson said. “It’s basically gonna eliminate most of the climbing that goes on in Hyalite.”
Which would truly be a shame. According to Josephson, with over 140 established ice climbs within a three square mile radius, Hyalite is one of the top ice climbing venues in the world. “It’s the most concentrated area of consistently formed ice in the country.”
That’s what attracted my housemate Craig Hall and I to ice climbing in the first place. Craig had taken part in expeditions up Rainier, Denali, and other high peaks, and I had done my share of scrambling in the Tetons as a founding member of the Creampuff-Pantywaist Climbing Association (Motto: “If it’s big we can’t climb it, if it’s small we can’t find it”). But there was something about the serene gurgle of a waterfall in winter — and bashing it to smithereens with ice tools and crampons — that drew us to the cliffs.
We attended Barrel Mountaineering’s Ice Festival in November, where top ropes dangled from the cliffs of Genesis I, one of Hyalite’s most accessible routes. The festival was great: Along with trying out first-rate gear and getting instruction from ice pros like local legend Jack Tackle, we gained enough confidence in our abilities to venture out on our own.
Scary! Right? The thing about ice is that it has a tendency to break off when you whack at it, and ice climbing is all about whacking. Constant, repetitive whacking. The key is to have a sort of elegance and precision to your whacking, so that you surmount the frozen waterfall with grace and efficiency. And hopefully you don’t take the whole shooting match down with you.
Despite Craig’s enthusiasm, I was a bit skeptical. Jack Tackle had an icy stare and a determined, no-nonsense way about him. Did we have that? Did we need that? After all, Craig is a jazz guitarist and I’m a sort of silly writer. There’s no doubt we’re climbers, but, really, we’re artists. I sensed that maybe we were just a little too loopy to do this.
Case in point: Our gear, or lack thereof. Ice climbing equipment is not cheap, and we weren’t going to sink hundreds of dollars into a new sport right off the bat. But we each already had mountaineering boots and crampons, ropes, harnesses, and carabiners. Add to that a handful of antique ice screws purchased at a garage sale and a mismatched pair of decade-old straight shaft ice tools we planned to share, and we were raring to go.
Barrel Mountaineering owner Chris Naumann said: “As long as you use good judgment and common sense, there’s nothing really wrong with figuring it out on your own. There’s something to be said for doing it that way – just discovering it yourself, versus being told how to do this or that.”
And figure it out we did. In repeated forays to the Genesis area, we learned all sorts of things. For example, while in other sports helmets are only used in emergencies, in ice climbing that’s not the case at all. The top climber regularly sends down chunks of ice ranging in size from pebble-ish to volleyball-ish (though not nearly as bouncy), and one quickly learns to lower one’s head at the call of “Ice!” for maximum brain-bucket effectiveness. Kicking a crampon too close to your other leg can turn your snow pants into tatters, and you end up looking like you just Hulked out — clearly an ice climbing “Don’t.” Stepping on the rope with crampons is a bit of a faux pas. Tossing the top rope into a bunch of bushes can really delay things. As can leaving the ice screws in the car and having to trudge back for them. If the climber at the top of the climb sends ice tools flying down the rope, which you have wrapped around a tree, it can be really scary. Not recommended.
Ice is weird. On super cold days it becomes hard and brittle, and it’s difficult for a pick to find purchase. In a rare display of temper, Craig hurled an incorrigible ice screw into the snow… but it wasn’t the screw that was at fault, it was the ice. On warm days, the tools slide in with ease, and we find the grace we were hoping for. On a really warm day — like, next summer — we hope to find the ice screw we’re still looking for.
After one great King Midas mood Craig bought more ice screws and brand new ice tools of his own. I inherited the old mismatched straight-shaft ones, which I’ve gained a certain awkward fondness for. Now we’re both lead climbing like crazy: Genesis, Greensleeves, Hangover… and that’s just in the Genesis area of Hyalite. There’s tons more. We just did Pine Creek Falls in the Absarokas, and I experienced my first leader fall. The rope saved me inches from the deck. I was shaking after that, but I carried on.
And there’s always next year, right? Ah, but the plan. In Deliverance, the brave canoers were among the last to paddle the Chattooga River, which was being inundated by a new dam. If I recall correctly, that movie ended with one guy dead, one seriously wounded, and another…
Well, I’m just hoping for a happier ending.
For information about ice conditions, Hyalite road conditions, and finding climbing partners visit MontanaIce.com
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