Icefall Booke

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It's sure feels like it's taken me a while to go down the blog road for this trip. Well, lots has been going on since I returned: a two full day drive back, unpacking, repacking for the Red Rocks RDV, unpacking, repacking for the Goddesses on Rock Sterling Rope event in Joshua Tree, driving back to Vegas, flying to SLC on April 22nd, and picking my parents up that same night for their three week long stay with us. And while I was in Canada, Adam flew to Switzerland, took his advanced ski course in Chamonix, flew back, went to Red Rocks with me, drove back to SLC and then back to Vegas, took his advanced rock course and was back in SLC the day after my parents flew in. Not having spent much time in our new home since we bought it, it hardly felt like home. It took me a while to get my bearings back. And upon returning to SLC, I had quite the amount of Doc appointment, to figure out, what in the world, was wrong with my hands since the trip into the Icefall Brooke.

Hands? Icefalls brooke? Ok, I'd better start where it all started!

In 2006, when I took a big ice climbing trip to the Canadian Rockies, Jon Walsh told me of a remote cirque, where walls were plastered with WI6 climbs. The thought had lingered in my head until he brought it up again at the beginning of this year. I was in. But still had to find a few climbing partners. When I told Audrey Gariepy about it at the Ouray Ice Fest, she was in. And soon, Jen Olson and Ines Papert signed up for the adventure as well. Jon Walsh would be our photographer. And we would fly in March 10th.

Once we got all the logistics together, we flew in with a helicopter. 45mins later, we were standing in the heart of the cirque with 500lb of gear and food! We set our winter camp up and were soon on our way to scope out the climbs. The guidebook showed what climbs had already seen an ascent and our focus therefore turned to the climbs that remained to be climbed. We played games in the morning to decide who would climb with whom and alternated partners frequently. Avalanche and weather conditions proved to be outstanding and we took advantage of each day... until my hands started hurting, first as night, and then during the day time. I could no long close my hands because of the swelling. The pain was so intense that even got stomach sick from it. It was really wild. I've had such pain in the past, after long climbs in cold conditions. But the pain would go away during the day. The issue had now reached another stage. The tendon between the thumb and forth finger seems particularly stiff and pressing down on the head of the ice axe on approaches was unbearable. But I kept climbing on the less, figuring I'd deal with it later. I took two days off and climb lesser objective after that.

We put up a total of 10 new routes in 8 days of climbing. Ines put up what she claims to be the hardest multi pitch mixed route in the world. It was a successful trip to say the least. I only wish that I would have experienced less pain, so that i could have enjoyed the trip even more!

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Photos

Photo 2
Burning our wastes before flying out