Climbing After Dark the Conclusion

The snow was so deep that I created a small avalanche and couldn’t stop myself as I slid towards the small cliff. Luckily I had an ice axe with me, which allowed me to dig into the frozen earth. I swung the axe as hard as I could and reached the solid ground a few feet below the snow.  I continued to slide for a few feet until the axe took hold. I found myself hanging halfway off the cliff and dangling from the single ice axe. I looked below me, the drop didn’t look so bad.  Due to the fresh 2 feet of snow, and the old snow underneath I figured dropping off the cliff would be safe. I plunged a good 15 feet until I reached the snow below. The several feet of snow cushioned my fall, but left me buried. At this time my friends decided they should check on me to see whats up. They ran over to me, to find that I was buried under a few feet of snow, with part of my read snow pants showing. So they helped dig me out, and I luckily was completely ok and ready to climb.

Turns out that all of our effort, we put into getting to our secret climbing spot paid off. The Frozen water fall had grown since the last time we had been there. It was now huge, and had amazing Ice. The Ice was slightly wet but super tacky and easy to climb. The ice axes and crampons easily dug into the ice. It might be hard to believe but slightly wet ice is way safer to climb then regular dry ice. This is due to the fact that, the ice doesn’t crack, it holds together much better. The dry brittle ice will crack at the slightest axe hit, huge chucks of ice will fall off and this can be dangerous.

This outing was just another example that sometimes it more about the journey then the destination. Of course we had a great time climbing, and it was the first night climb we had done. But getting there was just so entertaining that it made a story that none of us will ever forget. It just goes to show that u need to get off your but and go out and experience life. There’s a quote from transformers that I’ve always like and it goes, “Fifty years from now, when you're looking back at your life, don't you want to be able to say you had the guts to get in the car?” I think everyone should look at life that way. Also I hope you enjoy this sloth picture.