Climbing ice in Fox

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Early start to go ice climbing on the Fox. Got kitted out at 8am at the Fox Guides base. Loads of gear. Inner boots, outer boots, crampons, "tools", ropes, ice screws, hats, helmets. All set for a 9 hour day of this!

Instructor was Dennis. Just one other guy ice climbing: Paul from Leeds, who is a keen rock climber but never tried ice. Dennis and Paul compared notes on climbing equipment. I wondered how I was going to survive. Not much sleep last night... the climbing soon blew that away.

We started off learning how to walk around with crampons, up slopes, then moved on to climbing progressively steeper ice walls. For the last climb, Dennis scouted out and set up a "sick one" - an ice cave on one side, and a deep crevasse on the other. "You'd get a bit of a headache if you fell down there, hey". Excellent. Thanks, Dennis.

When I went down that crevasse, I was peaking, man. Here's some youtube video taken when I was clinging on to the side of the crevasse.

On the way back, a rock the size of a car fell down the other side of the valley (lucky!), making a huge crash which reverberated for a while. The guides weren't joking when they said "run if I say so".

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Photos

Clear skies after the rain
A perfect day for climbing

Walking up to the glacier again
This time a lot faster, and carrying proper climbing gear

Up goes Dennis
to set up the first "easy" climb

Using the seam
nice!

Hanging on with one "tool"
didn't need the rope, honest!

I'm going down that crevasse on the left
Hmmm

Crevasse on the left
Big ice cave on the right

Using some short rope
Paul and Dennis

That drop looks gnarly
Those are gloves down my top, in case you're wondering

Hanging on in the ice cave
Hard to take a good shot

The view down
Can't really tell how far down it is from the pic. Dennis reckoned 40m