Ice Climbing with cousin Kent :)

Had a really fun afternoon on Saturday with cousin Kent doing some ice climbing in Grotto Canyon. The weather was windy and overcast with light snow come down, so our choice to get into a sheltered canyon turned out to be the right one. (Plus the noon start really limits the options for a bigger day! :) )

Kent successfully dropped Blair off for his first battle with learning to snowboard on the slopes of Nakiska, and arrived in good style for partake in some ice climbing with the crack-of-noon club. So we geared up and headed off to start our adventure.

note: I had to decline the bean and tuna salad that Kent had made for us to take to the climb for lunch due to a deliciously sculpted ham, cheese, red onion, spinach sandwich, with a touch of prepared mustard, that I had already prepared the night before. However the bean salad did look delicious!

We arrived at the climbs after a short hike up the canyon, and were greeted by a busy crowd of hikers and climbers. We put on our gear and Kent got the condensed version of the 'how-to' of ice climbing, and we headed up towards the main falls, AKA Grotto Falls.

A party of 3 Aussies were scaling the ice on the climbers right hand side of the falls, so we chose the next obvious line on the climbers left to distance ourselves from the ice shrapnel coming down from above. Kent, still feeling quite unfamiliar with this foreign activity of clinging to a frozen waterfall with armor piercing tools, proceeded to climb the falls with the grace and tenacity of a seasoned veteran! It was great fun, and successfully topped out at the top of the falls ahead of our 3 Aussie comrades.

I explained to Kent the procedures of 'rappeling' back down to the bottom of the climb, and this being his first time climbing and rappelling, he embraced my knowledge with eager enthusiasm. I'm not sure he fully understood the engaging nature of the 6mm cord that had been woven into the ice that we were about to trust our lives to, but he smiled and put the control into my hands that I would return us safely to the ground.

Upon arriving safely to the bottom of the climb, we coiled the rope and ventured back down to our packs that had been stowed at the head wall junction of the three climbs. There we enjoyed our lunch, Kent his bean and tuna salad, me my tasty ham and onion sandwich, and we fueled up to tackle the next segment of our climbing adventure, the ice seep called 'Hers'. I hung the rope off the anchor at the top, and rigged our ropes to allow us to 'top rope' the mixed climb to the left called 'Scratch and Sniff'. Again Kent handily swung his tools and kicked his crampons up 'Hers', and humored me periodically with my paparazzi actions, and soon being being lowered from the anchors at the top. We both decided that we should give the mixed route a go next.

note: mixed climbing is climbing on rock (AKA dry tooling) with your ice tools and eventually reaching the ice to finish a route. This form of climbing originated due to the massive quantities of unformed ice routes not quite reaching the ground.

After a quick demo, Kent was off, delicately balancing his tools on the small ledges of rock, and methodically placing the front points of his crampons on similar small edges as he progressed uniformly up the scrappy limestone. After completing the rock section of the pitch, he was rewarded with a large hole in the ice in which his ice tool was able to be 'hooked' with little chance of it falling out. After the engaging mind work of balancing up the rock on, the ice hook was needlessly welcomed and Kent stood atop the climb with a permanent grim!

Being Kent's first time out ice climbing, he did exceptionally well, showing great poise, and an experts understanding of the physics and systems involved in the sport of ice climbing

I can't be certain, but I think he'll be back for more!