We only had two days, so the destination was Lillooet, BC. This is “only” about a 6 hour drive (each way) so it qualifies as “local” for a Seattle based ice climber. As we drove alongside the Fraser River, through evocatively named gas-food-lodging towns like Hope and Hells Gate, the wet, warm, and moss-draped canyons yielded to sagebrush studded hills dusted with snow, and the temperature dropped to freezing.

It was Lukic’s first time to the area too, but he had the beta and the guidebook and decided we’d try Marble Canyon first. It was surprisingly easy to find — road signs as described, frozen waterfalls visible from parking lot, easy walk across a lake (no bushes, postholing, or falling in creeks!). There were already a few climbers toproping The Dihedral, but the plum 3 pitch Icy BC was open. I was glad to take advantage of climbing with a more experienced partner, so Lukic led the first and second pitches. We declined the third pitch because of a combination of thin, steep chandelierness and closeness to sunset.

Lukic contemplating the third pitch of Icy BC

Next day, we left our motel room at sunrise to see temperatures in the 40s in Lillooet. Hm. We drove back out towards Marble Canyon anyway (other alternatives seemed likely to be even warmer), and when we got within a few kms, the snowflake icon blinked on, and it dropped into the twenties.

Crossing Crown Lake on Saturday morning

Another group was just starting up Icy BC when we got there, so we started on The Dihedral. Lukic led it then we repeatedly TR’d it until the Icy BC party were done and wanted to switch. In the meantime another team had arrived to toprope a mixed roof line, filling the three apparently doable routes to capacity (I would have guessed that there were only two doable routes before the mixed climbers arrived). One might complain about “crowds” at this point, but we got to climb what we wanted, and I really enjoyed watching the other climbers. Ouray is great, but many climbers there are newbies (including myself in that group of course) so are not that interesting to watch after learning the basics of what not to do (which I have to proceed to learn from experience anyway). I got to admire the confidence and efficiency of the other pair climbing ice, and learned that figure fours happen in real life, not just in climbing videos.

So, at this point we are flaking the ropes out under a route my partner had already led and I already knew I could get up without much problem. It is also afternoon, and we have a 6 hour return drive, so not only is this a good opportunity to lead, but it may be my last chance for the trip (and this is February, so it may be my last chance this season). Lukic graciously gave me the lead and even more graciously let me borrow his ice tools and screws. I don’t know if it was the Nomics, the softer ice, or what, but it actually seemed easier on lead than when I followed it the day before. Whatever it was, I’ll take it!

Icy BC

• Marble Canyon, Icy BC (follow p1 and p2, lead p1)
• Marble Canyon, The Dihedral (TR x3)

Supposedly there are three Millennium Walls so we tromped up the trail for another half hour looking for the other ones. We saw some ice dripping off boulders and some ice stalagmites sticking out of the creek but didn’t see anything else big enough to be a “wall”. Meanwhile the clouds blew away and the sun peeked into the valley, which made for some gorgeous views of Snow Creek Wall, but also softened up the trail. Sketchy weighs about 60 pounds more than I do so he got to be the posthole canary as we headed back to the original wall (which cc later informed me was Second Millennium).

Second Millennium Wall

As we were unloading and putting on all the pointy bits and nylon bits (order of operations is important…), I asked Sketchy, “Hey, how many of my screws do you want?”

“You mean, how many of my screws do you want? You’re leading,” he replied.

Uhh… Apparently when he told me the night before that his injured hand would be good enough for climbing, he didn’t mean good enough for leading. Now, I had led about a total of 20 feet of ice, ever. And followed maybe 5 pitches that actually required two tools. And I was pretty sure I’d forgotten everything in the 11 months since I did any of that. Suddenly the wall we were standing under looked a lot steeper.

To make a (seemingly) long story short I somehow cheated my way to the top, notwithstanding a couple of poorly placed screws, feeling totally unable to get my crampons to stick, some unorthodox techniques like throwing a hand jam between some icicles, and some learning as I went (eg. if the ice looks black don’t put a screw in there). I’d spent the summer doing a lot of generally being lazy and doing unchallenging things like single pitch easy trad in the sun, so it was kind of new (and secretly, a lot of fun) to be kind of in over my head. Still, it was quite a relief to reach the snow-covered low angle stuff at the top.

Finished Leading

With the toprope up (off a conveniently located giant dead tree about 29m from the ground) Sketchy took his turn for shenanigans such as climbing dead trees frozen into the ice and climbing by headlamp. I just went up a couple more times on TR so I could climb without having to worry about falling.

Night Climbing

• Second Millennium Wall, WI4-5 (lead 1x, TR 2x) 4-5 is the guidebook rating. I was told it was WI3 so I could complain about being sandbagged except I don’t know what any of that means anyway

So yeah, I guess I lead ice now. Kind of.

Saturday morning we woke up to a bunch of new snow. Not a good sign because the route would be buried. But we had bacon:

These ice tools are good for something

After a leisurely breakfast we hiked up to Hubba Hubba and found it doing this:

We took our packs off and waited in a debris-free area and watched more snow come down. After an hour of dawdling it looked like the sloughs were slowing down and getting smaller, so Sketchy decided to go for it and started up Hubba Hubba Center (the line with the pretty icicle curtain). It worked out fine — the only showers he took were after flipping off the route while tying in and after he had set the anchor and was belaying me up.

After we finished the first pitch there was more snow coming down around us, so we decided to bail to a tree anchor a short traverse to the left. I managed to place one screw in decent ice and sling the ropes over a horn to protect my traverse, but the after that was a slab covered with a thin sheet of ice. Oops. Nothing to do except scrape across it to the tree. When Sketchy got to that part he was a little nonplussed, especially since I had scraped some of the ice off, but he found some mossy crack to wedge his pick in so he was fine.

Ice climbing is surprisingly time consuming (especially when we have to wait for a night’s snowfall to clear off the route), so when we got down it was already time to head down. We hung out with a friendly husky mix named Solstice who was loitering around our campsite and then went to the Munchen Haus in town (they have heaters in the winter). When we got back to camp we had a surprise.

Bacon Thief

Someone stole all our bacon and eggs! And then walked on the picnic table, leaving his big paw prints so we knew exactly who it was! At least he left us some coffee and a jar of salsa.

When we woke up the next morning we had high hopes for another day of ice climbing, but we had another surprise. Rain! Ice climbing under snowballs is bad enough but ice climbing in rain is a bit much. So we had our breakfast of coffee and salsa and left. At least the rain meant that we wouldn’t have any trouble driving on the unplowed road…

Seattlites

There were 8 of us and 3-ish lines so things got split up pretty reasonably. Sketchy and I got an anoymous line between HH Left and HH Center. Unfortunately Sketchy broke a crampon about 3/4 of the way up the first pitch, had to downclimb to his last screw, and then lower down so I could give him my left crampon. Trying to do the higher pitches with 2 people and 1.5 sets of crampons didn’t seem like a great idea, so after I followed the route we rapped down. Everyone else was still finishing their routes and descending, so I did get to lead about half of the pitch to a tree, my first lead on ice (though it probably shouldn’t count, since I spent half the time digging out the tree so I could get to the trunk and set an anchor).

Hubba Hubba Left/Center

The rope is moving slowly but steadily. My partner, Sketchy, hasn’t placed a single piece of gear yet, and I’ve just fed the middle marks on our 60 meter through my belay device. The Northeast buttress of Chair Peak doesn’t match the gear-catalog representation of ice climbing: no sun glittering on thick, glassy ice, no plunging frozen waterfalls, no place to put ice screws. So far it’s been one mixed pitch of ice-cemented rocks, two of steep snow with occasional rocks and bushes. One of the steep snow pitches happened to have about 15 feet of ice that could be recognized as a frozen waterfall. We’re now on another snow pitch, which should be the last (supposedly, not that we’ve got a route description with is).

The climbing has felt easy to me, but I haven’t been leading. The protection is what’s sparse, and Sketchy’s a little stressed out, judging by the grumbling and ranting coming from above.

The snow is dust over a styrofoam-like crust over sugar. The crust holds together adequately, but occasionally a large chunk breaks off and dissolves into a bucket load of sugar while it slides down the slope. A chunk comes down following the rope line and I duck left behind the medium sized rock that’s both anchor and shelter. The leader of a party of 3 behind us has climbed past me and is now enthusiastically cursing and digging around in the snow for his own anchor. I hear another large chunk of styrofoam snow sliding down the slope from his position and duck to the right around the rock.

Feed rope out. Duck behind rock. Knock snow off my boots. Repeat.

The rope stops, with just a few feet left. My turn to follow. The biggest challenge has been trying to reach the gear loops on my harness around my puffy down jacket and the waistbelt of my pack. On this pitch I don’t have to worry about that. The single piece of protection is a girth hitched sling that I don’t even have to loosen to pull over its rock, so it doesn’t take long to reach the belay. Actually, I reach Sketchy sitting down in the snow, running the rope around a ridge as the belay.

We’re done with the technical climbing, and the summit is just a scramble away (supposedly, not that we can see it). The last time I climbed Chair it was early summer, and we sunbathed on the summit block while admiring the view. Today, no sun, no views, and, so close to solstice, no daylight, so no summit.

The first rap station is barely visible below, a rainbow of frozen webbing around a very gnarled small tree. Not the best anchor ever, but it’s good enough to be our ticket down the gully-slash-wind-tunnel to a hopefully uneventful walk out in the dark.

Descending

• Chair Peak, Northeast Buttress