December 31 - January 2, 2011

A little deliberation with Dale before the Christmas break about what to do over New Years resulted in an easy decision--Hyalite Canyon. He'd never been and I spent New Years last year there with great, cold conditions.

I picked him up from Seatac on Friday evening and we started the drive. Unfortunately, snow on Snoqualmie Pass resulted in chain patrol and a 45-minute wait on the lower slopes. We were a little bummed, but hunkered down for a long drive after making it over the pass. We had the option of a few hours in a motel on Friday night and half day of climbing Saturday or driving straight through the night and a full day Saturday. The choice was clear. I got some coffee and went for it.

We decided to hit the Mummy Cooler area on our first day in the canyon. With Mummy II and The Scepter, we knew some awesome ice was in store. We hiked up to Mummy II and had a blast running laps on the nearly 60m of near-vertical ice. Another group came up to the crag and got on The Scepter, so we stayed put for much of the afternoon. On our way down, I fired up my first lead on Fat Chance, a WI3 route back towards the parking lot. It went quite smoothly.

We hoped to make it out to Twin Falls and Cleopatra's Needle on Day 2. Unfortunately, recent snow and no good beaten path would have resulted in hours of post-holing. We bailed and headed back to the Mummy Cooler to hit climbs we'd drooled over the day before. We started with Thin Chance, then hiked back up and did The Scepter. It didn't disappoint. We each did a couple of laps before calling it good.

For our last day, we decided the Unnamed Wall would be a great way to get a bunch of climbing in quickly. We hiked straight to The Elevator Shaft and each put a lead in on the WI3+ column. It was awesome. We then headed straight for The Fat One and were treated to WI3 climbing in the sun and above-freezing temps. Sunglasses were on and it was glorious. We each put a lead in there.

We hoped to try out The Thrill is Gone, but super-thin conditions and warm temperatures made the route pretty dangerous and hard to protect. We had lunch in the sun and then hiked across to do Genesis I and II. We picked a steep line on Genesis I that felt like WI4+ or 5- and had a blast. Genesis II was much easier, but a solid 35m of fun climbing. By the time we rapped off the route and hiked down, it was getting dark and time for a big meal.

A 14oz ribeye at the Montana Ale Works and oatmeal stout on nitro was just the ticket to cap off a great weekend of ice climbing with Dale.