I had a great day climbing with David. You can see great photos on the Citizen Times website. We enjoyed some great ice condition. It was not thick ice but super technical. Thin ice is more about precise placements and delicate axe swings or “pecking”. Hooks and foot switches also make up the type of [...]
January 22nd was blessed by great ice climbing conditions, great help, and a group of 18 individuals who enjoyed climbing ice for the first time. This event was a fund raiser for the Carolina Climbers’ Coalition. The event was sponsored by Appalachian Mountain Institute, Black Dome Mountain Sports, Looking Glass Outfitters, E-Climbs Ice Axes, Bracken [...]
E-Climbs: The Hardware Revolution A few years ago, I got to try an ice axe that I had not heard of before. It was an E-Climbs. I was very impressed with it at the time. Recently, I have been privileged to work in closer with E-climbs. Appalachian Mountain Institute is now the Eastern US representative [...]
Ed and Stephan I climbed with Ed and Stephan today. Ed and Stephan are from the Atlanta area and came up to do some ice climbing. Ed has done some alpine climbing but was new to waterfall ice climbing. Stephan had experience climbing both alpine and waterfall ice, evident by the old ice tools. He [...]
February 20th I was fortunate enough to climb ice today with Michael Egues on Sam’s Knob in North Carolina. Sam’s Knob is a long ice gully that is 1600 feet long when conditions allow. Today was different however, more of the pitches were snow climbing as the Blue Ridge has been pelted with snow fall [...]
Climbing guide Ed Maggart and Tim Barton and I climbed at Whiteside Mountain in Cashiers today. The drive in revealed that Starshine was fat and in truth the biggest I have every seen it. Things were looking good. We decided to climb the gully pitches off the trail in an attempt to get in as [...]
Today Rodney and I climbed a 1400+ foot ice route in NC. The conditions where excellent with fat Ice all the way up. The beginning starts out with WI1 conditions with a step of WI 2. This follow a long gully that get steeper as you get higher. The view were spectacular with the new [...]
