Ice Season, Moving, Fitness, Equipment

 The end of march is sadly marking the end of my ice season but also marking an exciting change of location, career and habits. This ice season has overall been phenomenal, my comfort on leading ice and mixed terrain has jumped grades every weekend and the ice has been fat and good throughout Wyoming. Consistency in partnership has been challenging at times but my drive has only grown and my move will open up doors. Later on I will dive deeper into some of my climbs from this winter season but the big thing on my mind has been my move to Washington on end of March. I arrived to a stark difference from the high desert winter landscape I've called home for 4-5 years now. The PNW is known for it's rain this time of year. A new job with International Mountain Guides brings me to this part of the nation. I am beyond excited to start this job and think/hope career wise this move will be a large leap in the right direction to continue my growth as a guide. I began my trip in Seattle and was quickly excited to head north and abandon the busy-ness and overstimulation of the city. It was great catching up with an old friend but Seattle is a pace of life i am not used to and hope to stay not used to. I made the trek north where I was pulled over not once but twice due to the difference in Wyoming license plates with the county number can add confusion, the first interaction left me rattled after an ice agent was also there asking for my passport and immigration status. Strange times we live in. After bouncing around Bellingham I decided to head south east and check out the local drytooling where I hope to put in many hours this summer. East of North Bend Washington is Wayne's World, an awesome looking drytooling area. Although it has been raining for 4 days tomorrow a window is opening up and I hope to get a solid day of toprope soloing routes in. Fun Fact a good amount of twin peaks was filmed around here. Although the change of routine or lack thereof has been a difficult adjustment I am filled with excitement for my future here. Me and Sage plan to find a place somewhere around Washington and the prospects of living with my girlfriend are very exciting. The extra downtime has opened up quite a bit of reading time and Michael Mann's "heat two" is just as good as the first film.

    My final outing into the Wind River Range this winter was with my good friend Jerrick to climb the gully route on Lake Louise for a third weekend in a row because coordinating getting to Cody had become a difficult task. The day was blue bird as can be and our approach was blessed by a upclose sighting of a mama moose with a baby moose in tow, a beautiful sight. The day remained splitter and perfect temps to climb in with little to no wind on the lake crossing. The first pitches of the climb were a mix of aerated ice with tricky protection and engaging movement compared to the last weekend soloing of this section. This brought us up to the amphitheater with many options of where to go. My first choice was the thinly formed leftmost line, I had brought rock gear hoping to snake my way between jams, mixed moves and thin ice scratching but was shut down by lack of protection, only having brought cams from black totem to number 1 and handful of chocks. Beaks would have been money in the entry moves to get to the thin smear of ice leading to bomber cracks but the unprotected crux moves for 20' lead me to retreat to the belay and pick another line. This was the mountain steering me to the true money line of the day. The rightmost line was made up of a traverse on hollow ice into solid mixed terrain under a roof that ate up small cams. The movement was engaging and pumpy and led to thin hooking on a solid smear of ice most likely in the WI4+/5 range. The moves felt commiting and hard to reverse as ditos white flag and sade's smooth operator hummed in my ears. delicate foot work brought me to a exposed stance where i could slip in a nice yellow screw. easier terrain lead me to a nice belay to bring Jerrick up on his first mixed line and sustained ice line, the belay was filled with joy upon his arrival, a beautiful line of great movement shared with a friend in a stellar perch in the winds. 

                                                          The traverse into the climb

                                                                 The pitch Money Line

One last note is a recent modification Jay at Backcountry cobblers did for me which was adding double chest pockets on my merino sun hoodie. The minimalism in gear has been a blessing and curse when it comes to functional design and often the single chest pocket is better then none but in my mind especially for winter ascents and alpine guiding work the double chest pocket on a base layer is gold standard. This allows cellphones, powerbricks, extra batterys, and head lamps to escape the icy zapping of energy caused by the cold temps. An easy and cheap modification has made a layer I already use for every outing indispensable.

To finish some more images from this winter, Looking forward to a summer of guiding and playing in the cascades and left dreaming of the upcoming winter season. hoping to take advantage of my proximity to Canada and cut my teeth in the Rockies next season.