LOCALadk Magazine

Winter 2018 LOCALadk Magazine 31 LOCALadk Sometimes ice climbing is a sport of great violence — cold, condensed ice with the consistency of steel … smashing it like a Neanderthal with your tools. Other times ice climbing demands the skill and delicacy of a surgeon, ever y swing and stick of a tool must be precise and controlled. When the ice is poor quality or thin, if you hit it too many times or with too much force, there will be nothing left to climb —you can find yourself stranded in no man's land on a spider's web of shattered ice. And while ice climbing is one of the strangest things you'll ever do, it also one of the most beautiful. The medium of ice can range greatly in color, sound, and quality. Ice is an ever-changing and ethereal thing. Sometimes it's made up of plain flat sheets with barely a ripple; other times it's full of air and twisted like a tempest into other worldly shapes, and you wonder how it's even sticking to the side of the cliff. Sometimes it's a ghostly grey/white color like the sun- bleached boards on an old unpainted barn— dr y, hollow, and barely attached. When you hit ice like that with an ice tool, it sounds like the grim reaper himself pounding on a door that you're hiding behind. You tread lightly, swing your tools gently, and tr y to exhibit good judgement when you find yourself on ice like that; or as I like to tease my partners and sometimes say, I'd talk real nice to it if I were you. On perfect days, the ice is what I call "hero blue." Azure in color, wet and sticky, it forms up around the freezing tem- perature, or when there is an area of water flowing through colder ice (sometimes called the wet line). This ice is confi- dence inspiring, and a pleasure to climb, as it takes deep and secure tool placements ver y easily, feels sticky under your crampons, and ice screws take no effort to place. Sometime the ice is thin, so thin that you can see the moss, lichen, and rock right underneath it. You gently tap … tap … tap with your tools and crampons on ice that thin; it's a commodity that is easily squandered if you become too violent with it. Skill, and a light touch become the name of the game, swimming gently upward. If the ice gets even thinner, becom- ing intermittent or disappearing al- together, you end up doing what is called mixed climbing. Placing rock climbing gear for protec- tion, ice tools and crampons skating across rock, the smell of cordite in the air…. Rock climbing while wearing tools and cram- pons can be a physically challenging and frightening affair. The Adirondacks are a jewel of climbing, ver y few venues offer the quantity and high-quality of climbing that we have here. From the roadside areas of Chapel Pond to backcoun- tr y adventures in Panther Gorge, it's an amazing place to ice climb and call home. Never take this place for granted, re- member that most of our fellow Americans don't get to live in a beautiful mountain playground like we do. We are truly lucky to live here, and we should all tr y to make the most of that blessing ever y day. Cold Ice, Sharp Steel. Kevin MacKenzie

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