2015-16 Colorado Ice Conditions

Hey guys,

I was at Hidden falls on Saturday and met two gentlemen that lead the flow to the right and left two screws. I got your screws back, so hit me up and I'll get them back to you.

Cheers,

Seth

Sunday Wolf Creek conditions - generally pretty anemic ice...

Tastee Freeze: close but bottom pitch has not formed up yet;
Treasure Falls: needs much colder temps;
Millers Tale: not in;
Remus/Rommulus: looked very thin, though Rommulus is probably climbable;
Alpha Male: bottom portion is in; upper portion looked very thin;
Sheeps Clothing: we climbed this. The bottom is fat; right side of upper curtain has a thin column just touching down. We climbed the easier ice/steep snow to the left of the curtain to get back up and out;
Chain station: we didn't drive that far - sorry.

Climbed Ames Ice Hose 12/7. P1 isn't as big as last year, but still big and much steeper. Takes good screws. P2 is awesome, shoulder width or less for portions and good screws. P3 fat and juicy.

Rap stations could use some fresh cord. Didn't have any with me or would have cleaned it up a bit.

December 6, thirty five cars in eureka parking lot, place is completely blown out. What a shame.

Castle Rock ice is gone for now

WadeM wrote:Castle Rock ice is gone for now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSUIQgEVDM4

Moffatt was bumping and grinding today. Lots of TR gangbanging. Lots of chunks of ice falling. Not a whole lot left. Front Range ice antics. Le sigh.

A few shots from this past weekend.

Wade and took our first lap up Hessie Chimney and I was really impressed with how this local classic climbed. I think we got at least 4 sticks in the ice on this trip, so from what I understand...it's in!

Hessie Chimney 12/12/2015

P1, Hessie Chimney - Saturday 12/12/2015.

Yesterday I took the tools for a walk back into Glacier Gorge. There was almost ZERO traffic back there and it was eerie seeing no tracks across black lake on a bluebird Sunday - This however makes perfect sense considering the amount of loaded snow on and above these GG classics.


All Mixed Up 12/13/2015
All Mixed Up, 12/13/2015.


Black Lake Slabs 12/13/2015
Black Lake Slabs, 12/13/2015.

West Gully & Stoneman 12/13/2015
West Gully, Stoneman, etc., 12/13/2015.

After playing around on the BLS, I headed over to Jewel Lake to see if I could get a few laps in, but a large party had beat me to it ;)

Jewel Lake Slabs 12/13/2015
Jewell Lake Slab, 12/13/2015.

I toured out and stopped by Moffat Tunnel around 3:30pm after the crowds had cleared out. I took a few laps and shared a rope with some new friends (Thanks D, Bruce, Brad & Ben)

Moffat Tunnel - Left Pillar
Moffat Tunnel - Leftmost Pillar on 12/13/2015.

Moffat Tunnel - Right Side Ice 12/13/2015
Moffat Tunnel - Right Side Ice, 12/13/2015.

SPLITTER day in Glacier Gorge
Glacier Gorge.

J Antin wrote:Yesterday I took the tools for a walk back into Glacier Gorge. There was almost ZERO traffic back there and it was eerie seeing no tracks across black lake on a bluebird Sunday - This however makes perfect sense considering the amount of loaded snow on and above these GG classics.

Hahaha what a difference a day makes!
I went up above Black Lake on Saturday 12/12. At least 5 people in total had gone at least to Black Lake that day so there was a good boot track by day's end. Not so much at the beginning of the day though...

James Kersey wrote: Hahaha what a difference a day makes! I went up above Black Lake on Saturday 12/12. At least 5 people in total had gone at least to Black Lake that day so there was a good boot track by day's end. Not so much at the beginning of the day though...

Plenty of traffic TO Black Lake. Almost none to the Climbs (BLS, West Gully, Stoneman, AMU)

This weekend was one of the oddest I've had as an ice climber. Wanted an adventure up in the park. But felt like the avy forecast was a more serious than my snow safety knowledge would allow for. So, I think to myself "hey, you know what, let's just go to Moffat tunnel and swing some tools. So, leave Boulder at 7:00 AM, get to the ice, and realize I should have gotten an earlier start for climbing there than I would for a route in the park, as the ice was packed to the extent that all I could think of was that scene from Old School, where Luke Wilson's character opens the door to find someone who's "Here for the gang bang"

So anyway, all of the good ice was being top-roped to death, except for a little bit of ice under the chimney feature to the left of the main slab (immediately right of the pillar). Given that I love climbing OW/chimneys, I decide to choose my own adventure and take on the chimney hear-on. That turned out to be more literal than I intended. And soon my helmet is totally stuck in the chimney. After wriggling out of the helmet, and locking off on a fist jam between some ice and rock, I'm able to knock my helmet free and lower off in shame/frustration. So, a few minutes later, I get back up to clean my screws and decide hey, screw this, let's go check out the S-facing ice.

My partner thinks that's silly, as it's baking in the sun and goes to the car to take a nap. I decide to at least look at the ice, and make it up there to find a party of three already climbing there. They were very nice, but something seemed off about their behavior. I bid them farewell and went to look at the other small flows around the corner. Before I go, one asks me to give them warning shout before I come back around where they are. I find this really strange, but say, hell, whatever, and go check out the other ice.

It was all really short, though I could see some potential in other conditions, and, content with that exploration, I decide to head to the car, but, remembering the request to announce my presence before passing by the other climbers, I just figure I'll head straight down hill and avoid them all-together.

This plan went swimmingly, until I tripped on a patch of icy rock and fell down, with my head facing uphill to where the other climbers are. And lo and behold, I figured out why they wanted me to give them a heads up, as, let's shall we say, they were innovators in combining the dual hobbies of nudism and ice climbing.

So, moral of the story??!?!? Hell, I don't think I have one, aside from starting to think that moving to Cody, WY isn't the worst idea ever.

"So, moral of the story??!?!? Hell, I don't think I have one, aside from starting to think that moving to Cody, WY isn't the worst idea ever."

...This is why I mixed climb on Choss, there is never anyone in line in front of me!

The front range is overwhelmed with ice climbers. Moffatt is a zoo. CCC - zoo. Soon Lincoln will be the same. Then Officers Gulch. Then Vail. It's our own fault. We taught them to climb. But now what?
I think a top secret group of farmers need to meet, drink beers, look at topos, scout it out, make a plan and implement it. If anyone speaks of the plans they will be excommunicated and impaled.
I'm in.

Rick McL wrote:The front range is overwhelmed with ice climbers. Moffatt is a zoo. CCC - zoo. Soon Lincoln will be the same. Then Officers Gulch. Then Vail. It's our own fault. We taught them to climb. But now what? I think a top secret group of farmers need to meet, drink beers, look at topos, scout it out, make a plan and implement it. If anyone speaks of the plans they will be excommunicated and impaled. I'm in.

I'm down. And lincoln is a zoo now.

You know it's bad when you have 3 climbers at jewel lake.

Scott McMahon wrote: I'm down. And lincoln is a zoo now. You know it's bad when you have 3 climbers at jewel lake.

More like 8-10 @ Jewel ;)

Rick McL wrote:The front range is overwhelmed with ice climbers. Moffatt is a zoo. CCC - zoo. Soon Lincoln will be the same. Then Officers Gulch. Then Vail. It's our own fault. We taught them to climb. But now what? I think a top secret group of farmers need to meet, drink beers, look at topos, scout it out, make a plan and implement it. If anyone speaks of the plans they will be excommunicated and impaled. I'm in.

You'd need such secrecy. Otherwise the globalist nanny-staters will try to track you down for altering the water flow or something.

What ever happened to the proposed Red Cliff ice park? I read some articles about it last year and then nothing. I imagine some of us zoo underlings will soon be headed to Ouray etc when the place opens up and it will relieve some of the traffic up here on the front range.

I highly doubt that officers gulch will become a zoo due to the avalanche danger.

J Antin wrote: More like 8-10 @ Jewel ;)

Sweet baby jesus.

Who thought the overflow would require an alpine start.

Might be time to hang up the tools.

Let's be honest, the front range sucks for ice climbing anyway. The squid is probably the only good route I can think of, and it's not at all consistent. I've always been surprised that anyone bothers with all of the local 10ft pillars. Seems equivalent to being a rock climber in Kansas, why bother?

Scott McMahon wrote:Might be time to hang up the tools.

just don't sell them... that might make things work. On a more serious note, I didn't mean to be overtly negative towards the crowds, I mostly wanted to share the humor of the day. But yes, the crowds played a major role. I don't feel the right to be too bitter, as I was once an ice climbing novice who top-roped Moffat a bit too often. But I will say that back then, I had a certain reverence towards anyone who wanted to lead the ice (as, at the time, that ability seemed almost mythical to me), and pulled my rope so they could lead before top-roping again. So, my only complaint w/r/t yesterday is that, when we asked a group of 5-7 how long they planned to be TR-ing the main flow as we wanted to lead it, the answer was essentially, "well, we just got started and we all plan to take a couple of laps" (paraphrasing here). Now, these folks were very pleasant and nice, and I hold no objective ill will towards them if they don't share my opinion about giving a leader at least some priority over a group wanting to top-rope. But subjectively, that kinda sucked.

I love ice climbing and want the sport to grow, but on the Front Range, there's only so much to go around.

This is where I would love to see the free-market step in, there are a multitude of cliff-bands on private property along the Northern Front Range. If someone had the wherewithal to purchase that land, invest in good trail cutting, an irrigation system, a good lawyer (liability and whatnot) and charged an entry fee, I truly believe that they could start turning a profit after a couple seasons, and if the price was reasonable, then that could seriously help with the overcrowding at our current ice venues.