Dwight and I drove from Golden to Lake City on Friday evening looking for a weekend of ice climbing. Ouray’s much larger ice park would be packed this weekend with their Ice Festival, so we choose the smaller and much less well known Lake City. There we met up with Jean and Ken and planned to start out after the Mocha Moose opened for breakfast the next morning.
The park is obvious from town and we could have walked from the hotel the 3 blocks, but drove so we could stash extra gear in the car.
After wandering around the base we decided where we wanted to climb first and left Jean on the ground to guide us in setting the top rope anchors. Thankfully, we’d brought my 60m static line to tie off to some trees since the best non-ice screw anchors were far back from the cliff edge.
We each did a lap on this first climb (about WI3), then I pulled the rope and led the route. Dwight and Jean each repeated the climb again.
For our second route we moved the anchor to a higher and steeper location and again had to use much of our static anchor line to drop our 60m climbing rope to the base.
While playing around on this route, the first other climbers we’d seen showed up. They eventually decided to start out on the route we’d just vacated, so I took advantage of our anchor and led our current route.
After we’d each gotten two laps we moved our anchor again, again going up in difficulty (WI4+ ?).
I only top-roped this route, but we each got our standard 2-laps before it was 4pm and we decided to call it a day. After hot showers Ken returned to the hotel after spending the day climbing two 14ers, Redcloud and Sunshine, and we all headed out to dinner. A little disappointed that the NoName restaurant didn’t have a liquor license, Dwight and I stopped at the Depot saloon for drinks and I took a beating at the pool table. As we left, a local stopped and chatted with us and told us about a new climbing spot further up the canyon where they were farming ice.
Sunday started a little later (dictated by the later opening of Mocha Moose) but we were rewarded with an conversation with the owner who told us about shooting down the ice formations at the end of the season. We decided to drive up the 3.5 miles past the ice park to investigate the new spot. It looked a lot more technical than we were really ready for, so we returned to the park.
This time we set up a top rope anchor even further right (when facing the cliff) and did laps again.
For my second lap, I decided to lead the route again. By know I was feeling much more comfortable with my technique and dealing with ice screws while leash-less climbing. Dwight decided to try leading the first portion of the route – his first. I coached him from below while Jean belayed.
A couple more climbers showed up around noon and shortly after we decided to call it a day and get on with the 5+ hour drive back to Golden.
Adam’s complete photo album
Dwight’s photo album
