Author: Pete

Bozeman Icefest 2019

Post author By Pete
Post date 2020-01-25

During this view a climber at the parking lot about 1/4 mile away was playing some soft jazz on a flugelhorn. It was a wonderful sound in a wonderful place, gently echoing in the narrow valley. A great memory of the 2019 Bozeman Ice Fest.

December 11-15, 2019

Yet again the Bozeman Icefest and Hyalite delivers. Unlike the last couple of years I was part of a much smaller team at the fest. This allowed more climbing and better rest (at least excluding Saturday night) after working the Blue Ice table. Nate and I were on our own for the first couple days and got some great climbing in. The first day of the fest we climbed Dribbles (WI4) with Doug and helped with the avy forecast. Doug is always a great time and bring able to do a classic route with no wait AND get to help out with the avy work was a pleasure.

Tags ice climbing, winter

Climbing

2019-09-02 Wild Iris

Post author By Pete
Post date 2019-09-14

Aug 30 thru Sept. 2, 2019

A Labor Day weekend trip over to Wild Iris with some good friends. It was a good time despite that I did not climb more than a couple pitches because of my elbow. Carly was climbing really well and worked on some 11’s. It’s really great to see her climbing at this level and seeing that even harder grades are attainable.

Tags rock climbing

Climbing Nature & Hiking

2019-08-24 thru 26 Priest Lake

Post author By Pete
Post date 2019-08-28

The approach to Chimney Rock, left, brings one to a saddle and a eye level view of the feature and the knife edge ridge that once connected it to Mt. Roothaan.

August 24 thru 26, 2019

As a short vacation Carly and I visited northern Idaho again like we did over Memorial Day. We stayed with our friend Rolf at his lake cabin on Priest Lake. We were able to get a climbing day in at a very cool feature call Chimney Rock not far from Rolf’s cabin. The feature is very cool tower made from granite. I didn’t realize the climbing opportunities in the area. The route we chose was the easiest to the top and didn’t have very good climbing, but the top was great and views were good–too bad it was so cold and windy.

Tags rock climbing, vacation

Nature & Hiking

2019 July 4th

Post author By Pete
Post date 2019-07-11

July 4-7, 2019

As a break from the new van build we decided to take the July 4th holiday and make it into a 4 day weekend. Since I’m taking a bit of a rest from climbing because of some elbow tendinitis, we decided we could do some backpacking in the Winds as an alternative to climbing. The Wind Rivers have been gorgeous in previous visits to Cirque of the Towers (1, 2) and Deep Lake, but that is but one area in a beautiful range.

Tags mountaineering

Climbing

2019-04-19 and 20 Ibex Climbing

Post author By Pete
Post date 2019-04-24

April 19-20, 2019

Carly and I took off Friday morning for a long weekend to explore a new area for us, the West Desert of Utah. The area is huge and doesn’t have many people in it. The area is part of the Basin and Range topology that spans both sides of the border with Nevada. This area is characterized by mountain ranges, usually north-south running, and flat desert areas in between. The topography is such that their are rarely any outlets to the rivers and stream drainages. The water that falls in the mountains as rain or snow will only travel to the basins only to dry up. This is easy to understand when you see the landscape adjacent to the Ibex climbing area. It is a large dry lake bed that does at times hold a water, but most of the time is a hard smooth and flat surface.

Tags desert