Certain features beg to be climbed. Splitter cracks, lone ice pillars, iced-up corners, and chimneys all make classic winter climbs. Think about it. Many classic winter routes follow memorable features. The Black Dike on Cannon Cliff is a giant corner system. The Promenade at Lake Willoughby climbs a free-standing pillar through it’s crux. Bird Brain Boulevard in Colorado is an endless chimneying odyssey.

Joe Vitti on a beautiful unnamed pillar

Many of the routes at Platte Clove in the Catskills follow very cool features too, and this makes them outstanding and memorable lines. Chris Beauchamp and I found a nice little cliff in the woods at the end of last winter. This cliff has a few very classic lines.

When we discovered this cliff we were astonished. By Catskill measures it’s a “backcountry crag” but it’s not very far from the road, and it’s quite visible from a few roadside overlooks.

I’ve climbed at this wooded cliff a handful of times now, and all of the lines there are fun, many are mixed, and most are surprisingly moderate. Last Thursday I headed there with Joe Vitti, Chris Beauchamp and Harry Young. One of the best things about the Catskill cragging areas is that you can invite a crowd, swap ropes and try new routes. When you go with people who laugh easily, crack jokes, and like to take pictures it’s even better.

Here are a few shots of the lines at this cliff we’re going to call the Dark Side.

[View with PicLens]

I crunched some numbers during the past few weeks. Throughout the past 7 seasons I’ve spent almost 200 days in the Catskills during winter seasons. It feels like I’ve spent about as much time yammering people’s ear’s off  about how great the climbing is. It seems people are starting to listen. Rock and Ice and Climbing are both running pieces about climbing in the Catskills this month. It’s a funny coincidence that they both ended up running at the same time. The Climbing article, titled “Big Kat”, is about the author’s quest to climb Kaaterskill Falls.

Rock and Ice, Issue 200

The Rock & Ice piece was something Chris Beauchamp and I began to think about this past winter. Chris submitted the photos to Jeff Jackson near the end of last summer. He agreed to run an article if someone could put together a 2000-3000 word supplement for Chris’s photos. I worked with Jeff Jackson on the article during the fall.

The result, in my opinion (and I’m obscenely biased here), is quite beautiful. Chris’s pictures are nothing short of amazing, and capture the feeling of mixed climbing in the Catskills better than any photos I’ve seen before. His use of artificial lighting, something that’s rare in climbing photography, makes each image unique.

The images have a depth to them that I really haven’t seen in climbing imagery before. The image of Lucho Romero on Straight to Hell captures the feeling and the beauty of Catskill climbing in the cloves better than any other image.

From what I’ve seen thus far, this season takes the cake for “worst ice season” since I began ice climbing.

I got out Friday and climbed in the Catskills, catching the end of a short spell of cold weather. Conditions on the thinner routes in the Devil’s Kitchen were alright in the morning. By the end of the day strong sun and warm weather made for abysmal conditions. It was fun while it lasted. Purgatory, Smear and one of the corners were even lead.

Climbing in the Devil’s Kitchen, Friday January 6, 2012

It sounds like there were a lot of people looking to climb in the Catskills today. The Adirondacks too. It’s hard to make the right decision when you’ve driven a long way and want to do nothing more than to swing some tools. However, it’s probably best to do something else instead. After all, it is called ice climbing because the medium we’re climbing is supposed to be frozen.

Do you know how much force it takes to make a giant delaminated sheet of ice fall off of a cliff? Neither do I – it’s impossible to say and it’s not something we can control. Sometimes all it takes is the weight of one climber to make an entire climb collapse. Positive Thinking collapsed several years ago while a climber was leading the first pitch. The leader was killed in the incident. Last season an entire slab of ice unexpectedly let go in northern Vermont on a warm day. Luckily no one was hurt. A friend watched the entire top pitch of Plug and Chug at Lake Willoughby fall off in one piece on a sunny warm day. Wow!

Just remember, once an ice climb delaminates, the only thing holding it in place is the ice itself. When it gets above freezing that ice begins to act more like water. It’s going to flow downhill rapidly.

Next time you’re considering a day of ice climbing, check the forecast. If it’s way above freezing during the day and barely below freezing at night the best thing to do might not be ice climbing. Just my two cents.

It looks like we may have some decent ice in the Catskills by the end of this week. Better late than never, I guess.

I’ve spoken with a few other friends recently, and many have agreed that we can’t remember an ice season that began so late in a very long time. So, what do you do when you’re in the throes of a paltry ice season and you need a fix?

If you answered “make a ridiculously long drive for two days of climbing somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Quebec” you read my mind. This week marked my friend and regular climbing partner Chris Beauchamp’s 35th birthday, and to celebrate we went climbing in Quebec.

Even the Great White North is experiencing “winter lite” this season. We headed to Saint-Alban though, where most of the climbing is on overhanging limestone. 90 percent of the climbing is rock, although a handful of the routes manage to climb a few feet of ice.

This type of mixed climbing seems contrived. Nonetheless, it’s really fun to clip bolts and crank away on routes that are radically overhanging. Here are a few photos from our 48-hour northern excursion.

The main climbing area at Saint-Alban

The easiest route at the cliff, and a great warm up

Chris, working on an M8 in the center of the cliff

Ice climbing is a little like surfing. An exceptional storm can create the “perfect” set of conditions. Once the word is out that conditions are good a crowd of devotees won’t be far behind.

As a winter venue, Cannon Cliff only comes into shape after heavy rain followed by an intense cold snap. These conditions, which are common at either end of the season, don’t last long. The sunny clear conditions that frequently accompany the post-rain cold snap are all that’s needed to delaminate any thinner, climbable ice on Cannon, even if it’s only fifteen degrees outside.

Last Saturday I went to Grafton Notch with my friend Erik Eisele. We got skunked; the Hackett-Tremblay, which was nearly in shape the weekend before, had literally disappeared. We spent the remainder of the day getting bouted on one of Erik’s mixed projects in northern New Hampshire.

Sunday Erik went to Cannon, where he and his partner had the cliff to themselves. He took some photos throughout the day and posted them on NEIce and Facebook that evening. The photos were of a very fat Fafnir, Hassigs and Black Dike, and of Mean Streak and Omega. The routes looked healthy, a rarity during a normal season and an absolute anomaly during an almost non-existent season like the one we’re currently experiencing.

By 7:30 the following morning (Monday) multiple parties had made plans to climb at Cannon on Tuesday. Michael Wejchert, Elliott Gaddy and I arrived at the Cannon parking lot at 7:30 Tuesday. There were already 5 cars in the parking lot, and while we were racking up there two more vehicles arrived.

We approached as for the Black Dike and traversed left below the cliff toward the Omega amphitheater. Near the base we bumped into Bayard Russell, Freddie Wilkinson and Matt McCormick racking up for Mean Streak. This challenging route has seen only a handful of ascents and involves continuously steep and challenging climbing.

Elliott Gaddy starting up Omega

With no one else in the amphitheater besides the party on Mean Streak we headed for Omega. Elliott, Michael and I have all tried Omega before. Not only is Omega a challenging ice climb, it’s a tough route to catch in the right conditions. Like all other Cannon routes that involve thin ice climbing, getting to the climb before the sun delaminates all of the ice might be the biggest challenge. Elliott won the three-way rock-paper-scissors, and started up a rock and turf ramp to the right of the ice. The lower half of Omega rarely has enough ice to be climbable.

Rock climbing with crampons on the blank, slabby granite found at Cannon is an experience everyone should try at least once. Turn your points the wrong way and your feet will go skating off the sloped ledges. Turf shots are less abundant and always less substantial than one hopes as well, making even easy mixed climbing feel really challenging.

Elliott’s lead turned out to be more challenging than it looked, and had less protection than is normally desirable. It was an impressive way to start the season. I took over at the belay and led up a fun well-protected rock pitch which ended on the halfway ledge, where the ice begins to get more abundant. Michael and Elliott were at the belay in no time.

Michael Wejchert below the crux on Omega

Michael, who’s climbed more ice terrain than mixed terrain, took over at this point and led up steep thin ice to a slabby ledge above. As he stood on the ledge trying to find solid tool placements the hollow, unbonded 2-inch thick ice slab creaked and groaned. Michael decided the climbing above was more than he wanted to deal with. After a few sketchy moves back down, he was safe on the ledge. Elliott gave the pitch a go next. He climbed a few feet higher and managed to find two fixed pitons on the right wall of the corner. Above that, the thin ice of the crux was both unprotectable and not well bonded. After lowering off the two fixed pitons we decided to rappel. I didn’t need to try the crux ice pitch as well to decide that leading a full pitch of hollow, unbonded ice was a risky proposition.

Safely back on the ground, we realized that not succeeding isn’t the worst thing. It gives us a reason to come back, try again, and wander up what might be the East Coast’s finest alpine venue.

[View with PicLens]

There isn’t any ice to speak of in the northeast right now. I took a ride up to Smuggler’s Notch last weekend with a few good friends. Our findings were pretty grim – unfrozen ground, delaminated ice and very dry looking climbs. If this is any indication it’s not going to be a banner season in the northeast. Despite the rainy October and tropical storm deluges of August and September things seem dry.

Here are a few shots from my Smuggler’s Notch trip last weekend.

[View with PicLens]

‘Tis the season for what? Well, for Jack-o-lanterns and Turkeys maybe, for Christmas spirit, no way. It’s the season to start prepping your ice gear for the upcoming winter. I’ve used a lot of gear over the decade and a half that I’ve been ice climbing and I’ve learned the value of having good gear in flawless working order. Ice and mixed climbing is really gear intensive, and most accomplished climbers are fanatical about their own personal kit.

I realized about five years ago, after sandbagging a friend with my dull ice screws, that it was time to get some new, sharper screws. I replaced my whole rack over the course of the next season. Now I keep my screws sharp, and most of the time I can do minor touch-ups with a small flat file.

Before and after, a good example of Jason's fine work

If I roll a tooth over big time though (this happens easily on thin ice over hard rock like granite) I need to replace the screw or have it professionally sharpened. In the past I’ve just replaced screws, relying on a good propurchase price for new ice screws. However, I won’t be buying new ice screws any longer unless I need more screws. It seems silly to replace a screw when a good sharpening plus a little cleaning can make a dull screw perform just like a new one. It’s better than replacing, better than recycling, you can just keep reusing the same screw until you no longer need it, which means that same screw might just last your whole life.

Quick, solid ice screw placements are both safety and speed on hard leads where the limit of one’s endurance is pushed. So, if I’m not going to replace screws when they get dull, how am I going to keep them sharp for speedy placements?

When my screws need sharpening I’ll be sending them to Jason Hurwitz, a local climber and guide in the New Paltz area. Jason, a jeweler by trade, has transitioned to guiding and life in the Hudson Valley over the past few years, and last season started a screw and pick sharpening business out of his home in Stone Ridge.

Jason began sharpening screws for friends in the New Paltz area, and many of them were so impressed with his work that they suggested he start a screw sharpening service to make some extra cash and help local climbers out. Alas, A Nice Screw was born.

[View with PicLens]

If you want to have ice screws sharpened you have several options. You can send them to a facility with a jig and have the screws machine sharpened, or you can have them manually sharpened by someone with a finer touch. Either way, when you grind the screw too quickly you can ruin the temper on the steel. This is really easy to do on a machine, and the weakened metal on your screws will have a bluish black tinge that doesn’t wipe away. It’s harder to do this when you’re working each tooth by hand. Jason, who has a jeweler’s touch, does a really good job preserving the screw’s heat treatment.

In many cases he can make your old screw bite better that it did when it came from the factory. This is especially true of older screws like the old style Black Diamond and Omega Pacific models.

If you’re thinking of having some screws sharpened consider sending them to Jason. He’s a climber, local and a true artisan; it makes good sense. I’ve included some images of Jason’s work in this post and you can check out his cleverly named website here.