Hyalite Canyon Bozeman, Montana

I was fortunate to be able to attend and climb in Bozeman, Montana during the Bozeman Ice Festival this year. The festival involved various world class ice and mixed climbing competitions each night. Watching the world class athletes show their skills was an amazing experience, they are making a push to have ice climbing added as an Olympic sport. However, the real reason I made the trip was to get on some ice in Hyalite Canyon. I'd never climbed there before. It's almost entirely back country climbing with each route usually requiring a long, and sometimes, difficult approach and several hundred feet of elevation gain just to get to the ice. I met up with my friend Darcy in Missoula who was more then excited to join me for the weekend and we went for it.

When days start like this I can't help but be excited.

The first day the weather cleared and it ended up being warm. Ice climbing in a Sea Level Sucks t-shirt is something that I probably shouldn't get used to. The warm weather also made for soft and slushy ice. This made for easier climbing but made protecting each route with ice screws placed in soft ice more treacherous.

The weather turned more wintery after that first day. We ended up getting around 8 inches of snow while we were up there. The colder temps also turned that slushy ice into a whole different kind of beast. Instead of being soft and slushy it was now hard and brittle. Several pick swings were required for a good stick with lots of dinner plate sized chunks falling on Darcy as I led each route. However if I found a good spot for an ice screw, I felt much more secure with my protection. 

Darcy on approach

This was my favorite lead of the trip, a route called Hangover.

Placing a screw before moving up.

It's hard not to smile while you're ice climbing.

I had some free time mid route...

Selfies!

Darcy following and cleaning my route on Upper Green Sleeves

Hyalite Canyon was a great start to the winter season. Hopefully I'll have 3 or 4 more trips to get on some ice this year. The Ouray Ice Festival is next on the list after the holidays.

Catching up from the fall

Had some good trips this fall including a day trip to climb Queen Victoria Spire in Sedona, crossing the grand canyon twice, and a long weekend in Joshua Tree.

In September, Jon and made the short trip down to Sedona to jump on some multi-pitch trad climbing on a beautiful sandstone spire known as Queen Vic. It's not an overly challenging climb by any measure, but the exposure and views are amazing and multi-pitch trad always makes for and interesting day. We got an early start that morning trying to be finished by lunch.

On approach

The base of Queen Vic. Part of the fun of this route is the tiny little kitchen table sized top out to sit on.

SLS is always an important piece of gear!

The first pitch is a nice chimney climb.

Pitch two was a short traverse followed by a couple of mantles.

One more short pitch before the beautiful top out.

In early October my friend Dan and myself had the idea to do a Rim to Rim to Rim backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon with a hobo quick camp on the North Rim. This would also serve as a scouting trip of sorts since I have aspirations of doing the Rim to Rim to Rim in a single push at some point. We got an early start on Saturday morning heading down from the Kaibab trailhead (7,260 feet).

The initial descent always goes quickly in the canyon, fighting the urge not to push the pace and burn your quads is the real challenge. That and avoiding the mule crap from the mule trains.

Can you spot the Big Horn?

We reached the river (around 2,200 feet) in no time, then after a brief stop in Phantom Ranch began to follow Bright Angel Creek and start the ascent of the north rim up North Kaibab.

In a rare stroke of genius, we both packed an entire pizza in our packs for trail food on day one. It was perfect and we made a lunch stop at one of my favorite spots in the canyon to finish the pizzas. Ribbon Falls

Not long after Ribbon Falls the climb really began as we pushed our way up north Kaibab to the North Rim back up to over 8,000 feet.

After a cold night tucked behind a log to block the wind, we got another early start for our return journey. The wind backed off and the weather improved with each step downhill we took. We didn't linger on the return, our pizza being gone we were eating real trail food, and the call of a burger and beer on the south rim was loud and clear. We took North Kaibab down then met up with Bright Angel trail up to the south rim. 

 Back on the South Rim I felt surprisingly good and even more intrigued by the thought of making that same 40+ mile trip in one long push.

In November Jon and I were once again craving some nice rock as we took off for Joshua Tree National Park the week before Thanksgiving. Neither of us had climbed or been to Joshua Tree before. We had heard the climbing was hard and exciting and we were ready for the challenge. We camped in the Hidden Valley area. To say there is an abundance of rock to climb in the area is an understatement.

Joshua Tree is once again dominated by trad climbs so we collected the gear and set out to hit as much rock as we could in the short time we were there. The rock is sticky and sharp (requiring full taped gloves to protect our hands), and usually sand bagged with every route having its share of difficult and hard to protect sequences.

This trip was a learning experience for a lot of reasons. If nothing else I learned that a long weekend isn't long enough to sample the hundreds of routes in Joshua Tree National Park.