Ice Climbing in Leavenworth

My first time ever waterfall ice climbing with Mark McClure.

FeedbackBy Preston Hunt, 15 February 2002

Under Mark McClure's expert guidance, I went waterfall ice climbing for the first time ever. His trip report is below. Pictures are here.

Preston, Aimee and I (plus Maverick and Zoe) headed up to Leavenworth early Sat morning with the hope of finding come climbable ice. Our efforts were rewarded when we spotted several lines at Hubba Hubba Hill area. We decided to climb the central flow (WI3, 3 short pitches) since it looked the fattest. Since we got an early start, we ended up going w/ 2 60m twins to try and reach a small tree high on the route. Ice was mostly thick but it had some thin sections that required tieing off screws that would only go halfway in. Thanks to Brad for the excellent tip of looping the rope over the top of the tool while placing screws -- this helped to provide some mental relief to counterbalance the fear and frustration of not being able to enter/exit the leashes with loose fitting gloves. I managed to get to the tree with about six inches of rope to spare. Preston managed to follow the route with only an mountain ice axe and my small 3rd tool for his first ever ice climb.

The next day we hiked in two hours to an area (Millenium Wall) just across Snow Creek Wall and we top-roped from the top of the wall giving us the chance to climb several lines on the wall. Tons of fun! Everybody good multiple climbs on the wall and Aimee did her first ever ice climb. We saw zero other ice climbers the entire weekend (they were probably off doing the more difficult WI5 multi-pitch climbs Drury and the Pencil. There was also a serious scary line (for Brad to try some day) that went all the way up Snow Creek wall to the right of Outer Space -- it looked like a 6 pitch WI5 route that would be the ultimate challenge. I got some pix and should have them developed by Friday. We got back to the car just as it got dark (again) and made the long trip back to Portland.