02 Nov 03 - Midnight Madness is the big one on the left. The other two are actually unclimbed.
As you can tell from the picture, there is a pretty big avalanche slope above the climb, but if you go early
in the year, avalanche danger is minimal. The two red dots show the belay spots. I led the bottom pitch,
but stopped below the first dot because I couldn't protect a gully I wanted to go up on the right. Blair
came along and went left and took us up to the top dot. Above the top red dot, the ice was very chandliered,
so we called it quits there.
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29 Nov 03 - Almost a month later, we went back to climb some of the unclimbed stuff. Because of avalanche
conditions, we never got on the ice, but this picture shows what the ice can shape up to. What a difference
a few weeks can make.
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02 Nov 03 - This is from the base of the climb. This is the lower part of the first pitch. This part was
only around a grade 2+.
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02 Nov 03 - Here we see myself putting in the first screw.
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02 Nov 03 - On the first climb of the year, you can't be too careful. Here we see myself
putting in the second screw.
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02 Nov 03 - I went over a lip, so Blair couldn't photograph the rest of my lead. I rarely lead,
so this is a big deal. Anyway, here we see Blair taking over.
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02 Nov 03 - This is Blair putting in his first screw.
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02 Nov 03 - This short section was fairly steep. In fact, there was about two feet, where it
seemed slightly overhanging. This is Blair just above that spot.
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