Durango Ice Climbing: Feb 24-25th 2007

I'm not even out of the airport when the first visible symbol of the southwest rolls in front of the rental car complex bound shuttle bus. The bus's intercom pronounces this the "Land of Enchantment" for the third time as the tumble weed rides another gust of wind out of sight.

Hours later and I'm smiling at the dark clouds forming above the high desert and serving as a backdrop to the still sunlit spire of Angel Peak. I smile less when the clouds bring snow and I recall turning down the discounted SUV rental. "There are no high passes between here and Durango" I remember saying. True enough, but all the land seems to live at 7,000 feet.

Admiring the scene of snow-clad Cottonwoods I cross the Animas River for the first time, knowing that I'm following it's course into the mountains toward Durango. I arrive 90 minutes before my brother, driving slowly over Red Mountain Pass and coming from Crested Butte. Tonight we catch up, trade stories and taste pints in the breweries of Durango.

Saturday is another day of catching-up, only this time with Bob, my instructor for this weekend's ice climbing and my guide from 2 years prior in Ecuador. Under blue skies we drive out to Cascade Canyon to continue my introduction to ice climbing which started years ago just north of here in the Ouray ice park. Bob ascends the wall of ice, building an anchor at the top then traversing left to setup another rope. I enjoy some tea and snap a few pictures while keeping his dog, Killian, entertained.

Bob leads me through a few climbs of waterfall ice (WI) in increasing difficulty. My technique seems to be coming along better than last summer on the seracs of Mount Baker when my instructor, Joseph, recommended that I come out here for some quality time on ice. By the end of the day I've climbed routes up to WI5, the toughest I'd done yet.

Other climbers began showing up and setting up new ropes. Sharing ropes, the eight of us were well setup with plenty of routes to keep us occupied. Bob tossed me on some routes with a mix ice and bare rock (MI). Once again I was pushing my climbing limits as I'd never been on mixed routes before. Torquing the picks of my ice tools while searching for small ledges to balance my crampons on was all new and bewildering at first. Gradually I got the hang of it, but was still far from comfortable completely trusting my placements by the end of the day. That, and I was getting sore and tired from the non-stop climbing.

As we hiked out of the canyon we made plans to attempt Seven Year Itch, a waterfall Bob had examined from the road on the drive out of Durango and named for the rarity with which it freezes well enough to climb. It faces east, so we'd actually have a bit later start to let the sun move off the ice before climbing up.

A short drive then a hour of hiking up through aspens on a partly-beaten down path brought us to the base of Seven Year Itch. The plan was to leave our packs with food, water, extra clothes and headlamps here while we climbed the 3 pitches up then rappelled back down. This was a good plan provided we didn't take too long to climb and descend. I stuff a few errant energy bars into a spare pocket and guzzled water as Bob racked up his ice screws and tied into the rope.

The ice turned out to be somewhat brittle with few solid ice screw placements. Bob climbed carefully up, but backed off at one point to reinforce a weak screw. Clearing away fracturing ice he disappeared over the lip of the falls and the rope continued to run out as he made his way to a belay stance. I dodged ice chucks that came flying over the edge and began moving further out of range. Killian began to get anxious again as he realized that Bob wasn't going to be right back.

Once Bob called "off belay", I started to re-warm my fingers and realizing the climbing might take a bit longer than expected, I folded up my down jacket and tied it off my harness. With one last glance back at the comforts of my pack, I started up. "ClimbingI" I yelled, and swung my picks into the ice. Removing ice screws as I headed up and worked my way into an alcove in the ice. Once wedged inside I found I needed to spend some time warming my fingers again before I could accurately swing my axes. After the long pause, I hooked on axe in a hole inside the alcove, then leaned out and swung the other into the ice and squeezed my way through the entrance.

Soon I was beside Bob again and we headed up a long gentle slope to the next tier of the frozen falls. The second pitch passed fairly quickly, but the third turned out to be the cruz. The ice was very brittle and extremely vertical with few good foot stances. Bob ended up having to hang from one tool on one arm while trying to place some dull ice screws. The climbing was strenuous enough that after placing a screw, he'd clip in to it and rest for a while before continuing upward. Near the top of this pillar of ice he found a large crack running horizontally and partly re-frozen. Unnerving, but he continued up and put me on belay.

After regaining feeling in my fingers, I traversed out from my secure position to the vertical column of ice that Bob had just conquered. My tools managed to pop out of the ice while I tried to remove the first ice screw and I started a pattern of hanging from the rope instead of my tools as I took out each screw. The climbing was hard, in-secure and very steep. I dug out one of those energy bars after reaching Bob's new belay position. He'd elected to stop here to break up the final pitch into 2. The last pitch was much easier, but was also plagued with dripping water. The webbing we used on the anchor had gotten wet and then froze making it rather difficult to untie. As I followed Bob up the last pitch he advised to hurry through one section that was dripping the worst. My jacket must have absorbed some water as it started to freeze to the ice whenever I leaned against it from then on out.

Once at the top we tied into a well-rooted tree and rigged the ropes for a rappel. Three rappels returned us to our backs with some time to go before dark. We were both pretty dehydrated and were leaving neon-yellow holes in the snow.

Finally, at 6:30pm I was leaving Durango for that drive back to Albuquerque, munching snacks and sipping water the whole way. I was looking forward to a warm and sunny day rock climbing without worrying about loosing feeling in my fingers.