Ice Folly

by Tom Stewart

Ice climbing and living in Western Pennsylvania doesn’t go hand in hand. Once a year, if we’re lucky, a couple places near where we live opens up to some, well, shitty ice climbing. To most people, the mere thought of climbing anything puts a shiver down their backs, let alone it being frozen. So I can’t imagine what people think of me when I walk into the local store to stock up on Gatorade decked out in my double boots and Gortex garb. “Where’re you going,” they ask.

“Up to the old quarry above town,” I reply, hoping they don’t ask what for.

“What the Hell ya’ going up there for?” They say with a quizzical look.

“Ice climbing,” I say half embarrassed.

“Ice climbing, you’re nuts,” they say bluntly.

“I know,” I say matter of factly, “But it’s a good kind of nuts.” And off I go to my frozen playground.

I think the one minor setback to this sport that deters most people, besides the climbing shitty ice part, is that it has to be so cold that you wonder what you’re doing out there in the first place. Another deterrent is the fact that large chunks of ice can come loose and suddenly come crashing down near you, or on you, depending on your luck that day.

One of our favorite objects to climb is a waterfall that freezes into a wall of ice, well, maybe semi wall of ice, once a year if we’re lucky. We usually climb on it until someone puts their boot through and gets wet. Another, is the abandoned quarry where normally passive small trickles of water form into giant icicles with the uncanny resemblance of frozen snot. This sport can become obsessive to some whose access to ice is limited. I've actually read about some deranged farm boy out in the Midwest who converted his barn silo into an ice climb. He hung a garden hose on top and left it trickle for an obviously long time creating his own private frozen hell. One man’s ecstasy is complete idle lunacy for others. The winter of ‘96-’97 was particularly cold here in Pennsylvania, so I was half expecting it when the phone rang early one Sunday morning.

"Dude! You up?"

"I am now," I croaked. It was my friend Jeff. I could tell by his voice that he was ready to climb. Jeff is a type 'A' personality for sure. With his long black hair tied back in a pony tail, and his intense stare, he can be a little intimidating to us mere neophytes. Everything I do with him is all out or nothing, from mountain biking to rock climbing. Sometimes I envy him though; he has no bad vices. There have been mornings that I’ve gone with him to do some exaggerated outdoor activity with a spring break hangover and wished I could be him.

“I just drove over and looked at the quarry, it looks good,” he said, and I thought I actually heard drool hitting the phone. The quarry can be seen from a road across the valley and it was a ritual for Jeff to drive to a pulloff and check the ice with binoculars.

“Ok, I’ll meet you there in about an hour,” I mumbled, not quite aware of what I’d just gotten myself into. I rolled over and looked at the clock, six o’clock a.m. on Sunday morning, I gotta be goofy, I thought. I drug my half sleeping ass out of bed and began the process of waking up. I walked to the kitchen and looked at the thermometer, it read twenty-five degrees, not as cold as I would like it to be, but, I figured we could at least do some top roping. You can top rope almost any ice, but to lead, it has to be hard enough to screw big beefy ice screws into it. The one important thing you have to know about ice is how to read it. This means knowing when ice will accept your ice screws, or, when it will spit your tattered carcass off into a worthless heap. This day it was not quite cold enough to produce rock hard ice, but good enough for some top roping.

I arrived at the quarry still picking sand out of my eyes and met Jeff and a mutual friend of ours, Butch. Butch has a real intense personality with just a touch of eccentricity. He has a hawk like gaze and when he speaks he has a calm but firm manner about him, usually saying what's on his mind.

Butch spent the best part of his youth in Colorado honing his rock and ice climbing skills. He probably has four times the good experience Jeff and I had and six times the bad.

Butch has learned to 'read' ice the right way, from years of climbing with a competent mentor, not the trial and error method He knows how to tell if ice is good enough to climb on or it's snowman shit. His partly mangled hand is witness to this, he lost part of it in an ice climbing accident years ago. Jeff had a few years of experience mostly from top roping and rock climbing, but his anxiousness to climb overrode everything else. Me, I think it was just common sense and the fear of dying a slow, mangled death that kept me from leading this disgusting pillar of frozen slop. Jeff, being the "Type A" personality that he is, ignored subtle pleas from Butch and I.

"Maybe we should top rope it," I said with the taste of bile in my mouth.

"Naah, I'm gonna' lead it!" Jeff said sporting a cocky smile on his wind chapped lips.

"I think we should top rope it Jeff," Butch said solemnly. After hearing Butch suggest not to lead it, I thought for sure Jeff would decline from this idiocy; he didn't. "No I'm gonna' go for it," Jeff chimed," I'll be all right, besides, I want to try out these new ice screws,” he said unheeding to our cries of insanity. He stubbornly moved on. To those with little knowledge of ice climbing, an ice screw is just what it appears: a large diameter hollow screw which is screwed into solid ice (with great effort I should add) to catch you should you fall. These screws are real beefy and one would think they would hold a full grown pig, should it try ice climbing and fall; they would be proven otherwise.

To those with little knowledge of ice climbing, an ice screw is just what it appears: a large diameter hollow screw which is screwed into solid ice (with great effort I should add) to catch you should you fall. These screws are real beefy and one would think they would hold a full grown pig, should it try ice climbing and fall; they would be proven otherwise. It's is a real thrill to see someone take on a frozen staff of ice, with crampons and ice axes blazing. Each move specifically planned, to form a smooth, flowing movement, with the top and a false sense of safety being the objective. So Jeff started these smooth, flowing movements. He stopped and screwed in a long stainless steel ice screw at a strategically selected spot, to protect himself should he fall.

Screwing an ice screw into solid ice while hanging on an ice pick is no easy task. It can be a quick routine to the very experienced or, depending on the individual's state of mind and his ability to control his panic induced diarrhea, can take many agonizing minutes. Jeff accomplished this task, quite swiftly I should say, and continued on in a blaze of ice chips. Things were still looking good, so far.

I would have to guess that Jeff was about ten feet above his last ice screw when the incident occurred, this meant that he had the potential for a twenty foot fall, if his protection should hold, and almost certain mutilation if it didn't. Falling on ice is not pleasant, no one really wants to think about it. The thought of hitting the deck, or snagging a crampon on the ice, which would send you tumbling, (and probably give you a text book compound spiral fracture) is awakening. Gravity hates humans.

I remember bending down to pick up my half frozen water bottle when I heard climbing gear banging together. I didn't think anything of it, I just assumed that Jeff was screwing in another big beefy ice screw but, when I looked up I saw a nauseating sight, Jeff was airborne. The anticipation of the large ice screw catching his fall was too much...the screw ripped out like a nail from a rotting tree and took a dinner plate size of ice with it.

There is no word to describe the sound I heard when Jeff hit the ground, it was too unbelievable to imagine. Butch and I were both too numb to do anything but stand there with our mouths gaping. I can only assume that we both had the same image, our good friend dead at thirty years old.

It's hard to try and put in words what goes through ones mind in about the time it takes to choke back down a half digested Power Bar. I ran over to Jeff expecting to see limbs folded at unnatural angles and bones sticking out but, when I got to him, I thought, "Boy, he looks pretty good for falling thirty feet." I reached for him to start checking for internal injures and vital signs when he suddenly spewed, "Get away from me I'm allright!" I jumped back in surprise.

"I'm only trying to help," I stuttered apologetically. Jeff was starting to stir a bit when Butch finally got there.

"Don't touch me!" Jeff growled. We knew at that moment he was basically OK, a little agitated and stunned, but alive.

"I'm fine, don't make such a big deal out of it," He said trying to hide his fear.

"Big deal, you just fell thirty feet, it's a great big deal!" I bellowed.

After the shock of what had just happened wore off and Jeff was up walking on his own two feet, we were all back to being guys, slapping backs and laughing about how lucky Jeff was.

We were thankful that the snow was as deep as it was and thought it was hilarious that Jeff would have probably fit in my backpack if there wasn't any snow to cushion his fall and hauling him out would've been real easy, we all laughed nervously. We knew Jeff was very lucky. Butch and I started to pack up. We both figured we had enough for one day when Jeff excitedly stated, "I'm gonna finish it!" My face went flush and I became instantly nauseated. Butch got one of the shittiest smiles on his face that I've ever seen on a human. "Yeah Dude, get back up there, don't let it kick your ass!" Butch shouted gleefully. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"You can't be serious," I bawled.

"Yeah, I'm serious," Jeff said confidently. "If I fell off my bike," he stated, "I'd get right back on it and ride wouldn't I?" This must be some kind of sick joke between the two of them I thought. Butch didn't think it was a bad idea though. I quietly prayed.

I was awe struck that Jeff had the Kahunas to get back on the climb, but I did notice that when he got to the place where he'd fallen from earlier, it seemed to take an astronomical amount of time to move beyond it. Butch and I could hear him quietly mumbling to himself up there.

"Wonder what's taking him so long?" Butch complained. "My feet are frozen." My feet were frozen too, but I was too worried about Jeff to be concerned about them. I could take a guess at what he was quietly mumbling about though. I kind of think it had something to do with the fear of falling and those beefy ice screws that are supposed to hold you should you fall.

About the Author

Tom Stewart (dastorts@gte.net) is a begining freelance writer who is an avid backpacker, mountain biker, road biker, rock climber from Central Pennsylvania who i