Christmas and Cody

So it has been a while since the last post.  But there is a good excuse I swear!  Since the last post I have been working.  Yes, making money at a place of employment.  As it turns out being unemployed for two and a half months is amazing for climbing but less than ideal for the bank account.  After working for the past month or so I now only owe Jane $225!  And come payday Thursday at 11:59pm I will no longer be indebted to my girlfriend.  That makes both of us happy.  

After working for three weeks I was starting to become quite restless.  Multiple months of no responsibilities will do that to you I guess.  Lucky for me we had ten days off for Christmas and New Years.  With everyone heading back East to visit family but me I decided it was the perfect opportunity to visit Cody, WY.  I'm sure that my mother would have preferred to see me for the holidays, in fact she told me so, but ice climbing it was.  

The holidays started out with a very rushed stopover in Jackson, WY on the way to Denver.  It would have be longer but in typical fashion I took forever to pack.  Someday I will be efficient!  I'll blame the snowy road this time though.  After dropping off Jane at the Denver airport my cousin, Aaron and I headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park.  Soon I discovered my current level of fitness wasn't top-notch.  We climbed Alexander's Chimney on Long's Peak... topping out at almost 13,000.  What an amazing climb, but the almost five mile approach and post-holing completely exhausted us.  Fourteen hours of sleep later and a 2:00pm started resulted in a beautiful snowy day chatting with lost tourists and casual soloing in the Loch Vale area.  Then it turned out to be a Christmas fulled with family after all!  Fondo dinner and Christmas mass with my cousins, their partners, and my aunt.  More traditional than any other Christmas I've ever had.  And I came to CO to climb!

After a relaxing Christmas spent with the family it was off to the airport again.  This time I was picking someone up instead of completing a drop off.  Peter, a good friend of mine from college had flown out to join Aaron and I for the climbing up in Cody.  A eight hour snowy drive placed us in the South Fork of the Shoshone and surrounded by a myriad of appealing climbs.  I had made a trip down to Cody last winter and it would be an understatement to say I was stoked to be back.  We started off the trip with a drippy WI3, Stringer.  Being back in the South Fork was such a welcome change from the local climbing here in Livingston, MT.  While Hyalite is world-class and Pine Creek is also contains a few classics, they just don't have the multi-pitch climbs Cody does.  It seems like every climb in Cody, no matter the length or difficulty, involves never-ending flows of ice.  That eagerness to see what's around the bend, what's hidden just out of sight, that is what makes climbing in Cody such a wonderful adventure.  Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked here... back to Stringer.  The climb only had one main pitch, but then just kept on going and going up through multiple WI2-3 steps.  That is what Cody is all about, seemingly limitless ice that is just right for soloing.  For me anyway... it was Peter's (who now lives in Nashville!) first day of ice for the season.  He survived though and soon we retired to the campfire and our zero degree bags for the night.  

Pitch 1 Stringer

Day two brought us to Smooth Emerald Milkshake, a long tiered WI4 a few miles up Deer Creek.  Christian and I had climbed it last year and I knew it was a must-do climb for Peter's first time to Cody.  Lucky for us the snow was post-hole free this year and we made quick work of the approach.  The ice was a little bit thinner than last year, but I got to lead the crux pitch!  Last year it wasn't my block and I remember wishing it was.

Smooth Emerald Milkshake

  The view from the top was just as amazing as last year, if not even better.  This December Bitches Brew, a classic WI5+, was fully formed across the valley.  Next year...

Bitches Brew

One of the other routes I had in mind for this trip was Broken Hearts.  We had heard the first four pitches were in fat, but the one that mattered was the fifth.  Only one way to find out!  Thinking back on all my climbs I cannot remember a single lead that was as slushy and baked as some of those lower pitches.  They all climbed great, but our early start and the single digit nights did nothing to prevent the ice from becoming mush.  Being a classic of the South Fork, there were tons of hooks and having slushy screws wasn't as scary as you would expect.  After the fourth pitch we continued up through many WI2-3 steps, working our way up towards the My Only Valentine fifth Pitch.  I was so stoked and eager I was literally running up the iced over creek bed.  And then there she was... a 30 foot cone... a 35 foot hanger... and 6-8 feet of air in between.  Might just have to return in February!

Pitches 5  Broken Hearts

The last two days of our trip were warm and sunny.  We took advantage of it and climbed on the south-facing side of the valley.  Some highlights of the rest of the trip were sketchy pro, busted ice dams and big old camp fires.  The sketchy pro is because I don't have a spectre.  A tool pounded into a crack in the Cody choss is bomber if you put a screamer on it right?  Maybe I'll bring my largest pecker next time.  And I'm talking my big wall pitons here! The busted ice dam is the largest I've ever encountered in over five years since I first started leading ice.  Lucky for me it was our last day and it didn't matter too much that I had wet feet for a few hours.  Lastly, we had cut all this wood... So of course we had to burn it all on the last night.  It was just a warm-up to what we have planned for bonfires during our trip up to the Canadian Rockies next month though.  Stay tuned for that.  

Pitch 1, Oh Be Joyful