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Ice Climbing, Lillooet, BC

February 20-21, 2002

Probably the last trip of the season to Lillooet for me. The days are getting longer, the sun is getting higher, the ice is melting. This didn't turn out to be a picture-perfect weekend, I was nursing a flu/head cold/sinus infection, but we had a lot of fun. Jens was in the zone on Wednesday.

We pretty much had Marble Canyon to ourselves on Wednesday. Jens led a combination of The Dihedral (bottom half) and Waite for Spring (top half). Then we climbed Icy BC. I led the first pitch. It was in pretty good shape with plastic ice and decent pro, except the top half of the first pillar (bad pro). The second pitch was a hollow tube. Through a hole in the back we could see through the front. It was probably leadable, but we opted to walk around.

Jens made a very nice lead of the third pitch. The ice was plastic and there was pro to be found. He also worked a cool stand-up rest in a small ice-cave halfway up the pitch. It was an impressive lead.

Clearly feeling good, he finished up the day by cleanly and smoothly climbing No Deductible on TR. Neither of us had been on the route before. At the tail end of being sick for two weeks, I decided to save some energy for Thursday and skipped it.

Jens bouldering on the first pitch of Icy BC.

Jens leading low on The Dihedral.

Between warm temps and constant top-rope bashing, the middle never got a chance to come in this year. Compare to mid-January, 2001:

Photo from CasBC site.

Me leading on the first pitch of Icy BC.

Jens leading low on the third pitch of Icy BC.

Jens working a stem near the end of 'the business' on the third pitch of Icy BC.

Jens TRing No Deductible.

Sunshine of the limestone of Marble Canyon. 

Cherry Ice and Honeyman Falls in less than stellar shape.

On Thursday we practiced approaches. First we hiked up to the base of Shriek of the Sheep. It was snowing hard and had been most of the night. We opted to retreat in the face of growing avalanche danger.

The morning blown, we debated between The Rambles and Botanie Falls. We decided to roll the dice and go hunting for Botanie. We didn't see anything that looked like ice anywhere around 11km. On our third pass I spotted some ice though the trees further up the road. It looked climbable through binoculars, so we slogged up. After post-holing for 75 minutes we found the anemic-looking ice. In heavy, steady snow, we retreated to the car and drove home.

Mystery ice in the Botanie Valley.

This page was last edited on Wednesday, February 23, 2005
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