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Our Friend Ice
One winter during college, I borrowed some ice tools and went ice climbing with a friend, an experienced ice climber. At the top of the first pitch of a moderate two-pitch climb led by my friend - the first ice climb of my life - my buddy belayed me to an anchor where he stopped the climb cold. I was in distress, having just murdered a pretty wall of ice, and he recognized my struggle with every hack-smack-whack of my tools. Panting, my sweaty face pressed into white-knuckled grips on my tools, I was fried, a nervous wreck.
I'd gotten a spanking, a stark reminder that a can-do attitude and a gung-ho character could take me only so far. I needed to learn a lesson in trust to break my distrust of both the ice and my tools. Until that happened, ice and I were not going to be on friendly terms.
My buddy instructed me on planting tools securely in the ice without deeply embedding the pick. In improving on that, I loosened my gorilla grip on planted tools and, per my buddy's careful urging, walked my cramponed feet up the ice letting the leashes, not my grip, hold my body until I was hanging upside down, feet pushed skyward. "That's it," he said. "Perfect. How does that feel?" Well, it felt dang good. It felt good to feel secure - there, in all places, head down on a frozen waterfall 50 feet off the ground. It felt good to know that I didn't have to kill the ice to get a solid placement in it, which, I learned, also spares knuckles. But also it felt good to be at a place where an exciting sport was warming up to me. I followed the second pitch using my new skills, my confidence growing with each placement of a tool. My feet soon followed. We rappelled the route and climbed it again.
So began my ice-climbing "glory" years when for two winters my college grades slipped as I got schooled on ice, earning a degree of humility. I have climbed plenty of ice after then but never with the gusto of those years. Now, many years past, ice and I remain friendly if not frequent friends.
I'm reminded of my relationship with ice whenever the Ouray Ice Festival approaches. This year, the festival is January 7-10 - it's here (pg. 10)! There aren't many places in the world like it where getting to know ice is as safe or friendly. It's full of people who come to Ouray to continue a friendship with ice or to begin a relationship with it. They come to get a first spanking in safety, to get schooled by pros, to get recognized for their skills in competition or to simply get thrills on ice. That, and to have fun among friends.
See you there!
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