Rainbow Wall Ice
Place: Snow Creek Trail
Grade: WI 2/2+
Length: 25 m
Dave leading the pitch.
Cleaning the ice screws while down-climbing.
Emily climbing the popsicle!
The temperature was a lovely 15 degrees F and after the the prolonged lead, anchoring and downclimbing time, my helmet had managed to freeze to my hair. Lovely! The ice was a good 6 to 8 inches thick and pretty solid. I threw in the mixed climbing rating due to the circus high-wire act that was needed to reach a tree to ancor off of. First I had to traverse across extreamly thin ice (about 2-3 cm) and cross a 5 foot section of nearly smooth exposed rock. However, after not too much pants-wetting, I was anchored to the tree. The downclimb was interesting because I had to traverse back to where I came from and retrieve my last screw about 15 feet to my right. As you can see in the second picture, the potential for swing was quite exciting daddy-o! There were plenty of other small solo problems around, and another good 25-30 m waterfall in the immediate area.