Ice Climbing Trips in 2004            

Early in the year Kerry had the chance to go ice climbing twice: in January he climbed with Cody at Stony
Clove in the Catskills, and then for two days in February up at the Adirondacks (Daks) with Ian
Osteryee.  It was Kerry's first real trip to the Adirondacks, and there was indeed some incredible climbing.
It also looks like Kerry may be able to get in a couple of days of ice climbing back in the Daks just
prior to Christmas (Dec 21-22, 04).  If so, we'll try to include some of those pics soon.

Below are a couple of pictures from the ice climbing in Jan '04 at the Catskills.  We climbed in the Little Black Dike
area.  We did 6 pitches, and most of stuff was very hard and/or mixed.  All in all a great day of climbing.  The first photo
shows a picture of the classic Little Black Dike (named after the famous Black Dike climb up in NH), and the second shot
shows Cody going up some thin ice (on a borderline mixed route).  That was actually a very fun route, that required a bit of technique.

       


The big climbing trip was the February '04 one.  Kerry stayed at the Keene Valley Lodge (a VERY nice B&B run by George and Linda).
It was not very crowded, so George and Kerry had nice conversations each morning over breakfast as we were waiting
for Ian to arrive. The first day we started off on a variety of routes at Chapel Pond.  We crossed the frozen
(and snow covered) lake and went down into the "Canyon".  We started by doing 3 variations of "Lions on the Beach" (named
after a Hemingway phrase).  After this, we drove down in the direction of  Lake Placid, and climbed a route and variations called Sister Right.
These were in the sun, and the ice was almost perfect for climbing (plastic and pliable). We then did 3 variations. After
this we then took a LONG hike down the lake the runs parallel to the main road (a really cool, slipping and sliding hike), and did some
harder stuff at a climb called Jaws.  We walked about a mile on the frozen lake, and unlike Chapel Pond this was not inherently, snow covered,
so there was a bit of sliding, gliding and slipping.  Jaws was a very hard and thin climb (especially the lower pitch).  Ian did this as two pitches
and combined it was about 200 feet!!.  If you click the first picture (of Kerry on Sister Right) below you'll get a slightly larger image.

     

The second day was a bit easier in that we did several of the more classic multi-pitch routes (Roaring Brook Falls and Chouinard's Gully).
The second pitch of Chouinard's Gully (which is located at Chapel's Pond) had extremely thin ice for the first 20 or so feet (it was only
about 1/4 th to 1/2 and inch  thick).  Hence, it required some delicate technique.  After we did Chouinard's Gully we then did
a climb called Dog's Leg.  Ian combined this as a single 200 foot pitch.!!  We ended the second day around 1:30 PM (so I could get back on
the road), but even in that "short" day we put in over 1000 vertical feet of climbing!!!

Here are some photos from Roaring Creek Falls and Chouinard's Gully.  The below/left picture
shows Kerry about mid-way up the multi-pitch Roaring Creek Falls climb (you can't actually see the frozen water
fall, but you can see some of the peaks and valleys in the background).  The other picture was taken during our
descent of Chouinard's Gully.  You can see another climbing moving up.  You can also see several cross country
skiers below us on a frozen Chapel's Pond.  This particular climb (especially the views) were simply extraordinary!!

 

and of course some links

click here to get to the 2003 Ice climbing page

Click here to get to some of Kerry's early cold climbing

Back to Coffman 2004 home page

Back to Coffman Home Page