Utah Ice Conditions '12-'13

Enticed by Matt's photos we got on the Fang today 1/23 an nearly got the chop. Avi danger was low. It was cold, beautiful and windless but the climb avalanched from above the 3rd pitch.
I was at the 1st pitch anchor on the left and my buddy was 100' out, no gear, left of center at the first bit of ice in the snow gully placing a screw when it went.
He heard it coming, yelled avalanche, grabbed the tools, ducked and hung on. Debris was large pieces of dirty ice that entrained a lot of loose snow. The thing roared on for a good while and was nearly full width of the lower end of the snow gulley, wall to wall. It lasted long enough for me to think that if the rope went slack I needed to reel in as much as possible to keep him from hitting the ground. And then to wonder what would fail if i did catch him.
It stopped, he stayed put and was unhurt but packed with snow. The big deadly pieces went over his head due to the step he was below. Fairly certain part of the stream bed above let loose.
Had we been anywhere else on the climb things would not have been ok.
I know that first pitch gets top roped from time to time. Be careful, move fast.

f*k!

GWI let some big drifts loose today, wondering if anyone else noticed....guess they did

Wow cdec, glad you guys are ok! Not the best place to be when that thing rips. Hard to believe your bud had enough cover in that gully or that nothing snagged the rope and took him for a ride.

Was on the Fang many years ago while shooting some pics of a friend half way up the first pitch when the sky went black. I dove towards the base where my other friend was anchored and got blasted for some time before things settled down and we dug ourselves out. The gully pitch got nailed so hard crampons barely penetrated the compressed snow. The huge snow debris cone below the first pitch was full of rocks, ice, tree remnants, and any gear we didn't have cliped in. It's been a very long time since I've been on that route but I remember thinking that we were damn lucky to be in one of the few places on the route where one could survive such a thing. The fact that you guys came out unscathed from that location is amazing.

Wow! Glad to hear you guys go out of that ok. Thanks for posting. Its a good reminder that those ice flows are funnels for a lot of the mountain above. Be safe out there everyone

cdec wrote:Enticed by Matt's photos we got on the Fang today 1/23 an nearly got the chop. Avi danger was...

Reading the prior posts, I was just thinking it was safe to venture up on the Fang at the moment. Maybe it was just a bit to warm up above the 23rd, and prior day, and snap! I've had some dodgy ice experiences (thankfully, not as scary as yours) on 32-32+ days. Maybe I'll wait for slightly colder temps. Thanks for posting...

Sketchy, glad to hear it wasn't worse. One thing to remember during these inversions is that while one may be freezing one's ass off at the base of the climb, the top may be basking in 40-degree temperatures. This can be a problem in long drainages with avi danger above or on Stairway, where hanging daggers can collapse far above you.

It was 16 degrees at the parking lot and still plenty cold on the route. I knew it was warmer up high but still cold. Knowing the history of the route i was keeping an eye on the cloud cover as well. It was very cloudy all morning and I wasn't really worried about green housing.
I don't really think it was a function of warming more just one of those things. Ice falls down.

Climbed White Nightmare this morning in the dark. If we had seen what things looked like in the light I might have made a different decision. It's amazing how fast the ice has deteriorated in this weather. It's extremely drippy, soft and falling apart in places. There's a tremendous amount of rock and ice falling in the Bridal Veil Area.

Bridal Veil Falls 1/25/12

Plan on a different activity until the temperatures plummet for a few days.

Garret Nuzzo-Jones wrote:Plan on a different activity until the temperatures plummet for a few days.

I think I will take up something safer like Jai alai.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo4L83VQjPM

Conditions of Frozen Assets... down and out for the count

non existent 2nd pitch of Frozen Assets

due to the weather went north thinking it'd be a lil cooler up in logan, hoped on Last chance falls. bottom as of yesterday morning is melted out completely but the top was still leadable

last chance falls 1-28-2013

mixed dry tooling start

I dropped a screw somewhere in the snow coming off of "Backoff" in Santaquin. It's a 16cm BD express (with the blue crank). If you find it, please let me know, ty.

scott cooney wrote:due to the weather went north thinking it'd be a lil cooler up in logan, hoped on Last chance falls. bottom as of yesterday morning is melted out completely but the top was still leadable

You must have got there right after we left. We climbed it and spent the rest of the morning looking for the other elusive ice in Logan Canyon. We didn't find anything else to climb. Beautiful setting though.

You must have got there right after we left.
.
I knew I was climbing hot on the heels of someone, we got to the base right as the snow started flying and by the time we finished TR laps it was piling up so we called it a day

Has anyone been up stairway the last couple days? Since it rained yesterday I am a bit worried about ice and rockfall conditions. I was thinking of going in the morning but just worried everything has fallen down or will be falling down tomorrow.

Climbed the apron this morning. We had absolutely nothing falling down and the ice was perfect plastic. No idea what the day today did to it.

I went up there this morn... Due to the warm temps yesterday and the fact it stayed pretty warm all night coupled with the weather conditions we decided to wait for a better day. It was snowing a ton and it would have been hard to tell the integrity of the ice.

Guess Ill just have to wait for another day. Plus, I think with all the snow blowing around would have made for miserable climbing ;) ha!

Any idea what the conditions have done in the last few days of this rain/snow? Anyone been out this week? Also, anyone been over to Maple Canyon?

Anyone been to Joe's lately? Looking like it could be on the warm side for the weekend?

Go to hyalite best conditions anywhere in the US right now.