The new year is upon us...

So the new year is upon us. My friend Joe and I decided to kick it off with a bang as we drove down to Valdez on the 1st for eight days of skiing and climbing. The drive down was thankfully uneventful and we arrived in Valdez at about two or three in the morning on the 2nd.
Our first climb we decided on was Horsetail Falls, an area classic, going at Grade III. Of course ice is a fickle beast and we were once again reminded that you can't put a grade on something that is continually changing as time progresses.
Joe wanted the sharp end of the rope so I set up the belay and watched as he gingerly lead his way up some rather thin ice. The wind was blowing in classic Valdez style through Keystone Canyon as I sat at the belay, the sun slowly disappearing behind the gigantic canyon wall that encompass the canyon.
As he lead my hands grew colder and colder, the wind blew harder, and as always, it seemed as though forever had passed before finally Joe broke my thousand mile gaze by yelling something down to me. It was hard to make out amidst the raging wind, however I could see that he did not seem to want to go up any higher, he was about a half pitch up the falls and something was bothering him. I yelled up to set up a belay and bring me up, that way we could assess the situation together and find out what course of action would be best in order to finish off Horsetail Falls.
After setting up a belay Joe brought me up and I cleaned the screws that he had placed. Once standing by his side on a little platform of ice, eighty feet above the ground, tied into a couple of ice screws in the side of the frozen waterfall, Joe told me what was bothering him. The ice was formed enough to climb, and in places was thick enough to take a screw, however the eery part of the climb was that as he placed a tool he could feel the whole sheet of ice vibrate. The ice was thin, real thin. In fact, the water rushing beneath the ice was clearly visible, and it seemed as though any kick with our crampons could have plunged us through into the icy water flowing just under the thin ice.
For a second I considered finishing out the lead, but the fact is, the ice was thin, it was getting dark, the wind was blowing hard through the canyon, and it was cold. So in perfect style we bailed off a v-thread and were back at the truck a half hour later, where the road lead quickly into Valdez where we gorged ourselves on good food and hot coffee.
The next day we wanted to try to find a climb that was later described to us by a local Valdez climber as "obscure." And obscure it was. We skied up the Mineral Creek Valley a short ways and then veered off the trail, kicking our skis up the side of a big hill toward the side of the valley where we thought "A Walk in the Park" would be located. It looked good, an obvious drainage gully coming in off the ridge. Of course two hours later we were still far from the gully, wallowing in three feet of snow, battling alders. We decided to head back to the trail and do some skiing up the valley to see if we could find some less "obscure" ice that we wanted to climb.
We spent that day skiing and did in fact find something that we decided we would climb the next day. A little one pitch climb called, "Piece of Cake."
After another night of sleeping in the front of my truck we got up and had breakfast at the Totem Inn. Then we drove over to the trail head, waxed up our skis and took off for the climb. A short mile and a half ski brought us to the small creek that leads up to the base of the climb. We sorted gear and headed out. About a half hour of post holing brought us to the base of the climb, where once again we found very thin sheets of ice between half decent little mushrooms of thicker stuff. After a bit of contemplation I decided to man-up and climb the thing. At times I was a bit overwhelmed by the idea of kicking through the thin sheets of ice and falling into the icy blackness behind the curtain, however I overcame my fears and led the fairly easy pitch. From the top we set up two equalized v-threads in some fairly manky ice and rappelled safely back down. The ski out via headlamp went well and soon we were once again enjoying the fine cuisine of Valdez.
The next day once again dawned beautiful with the sun casting lavender shades over the mountains that touch the ocean all around Valdez. Our plan for the day was to ski for awhile on the trails up Mineral Creek Valley, and then to go out to the Valdez Glacier and do some skiing up there. Unfortunately as we were coming down a fairly steep section on one of the cross-country trails, Joe hit the snow berm on the side of the turn and twisted his knee and ankle pretty bad. He managed to hobble about a mile back to the car, using his skis as crutches, and then we went to the Valdez Hospital ER. Luckily nothing was broken, so after getting a bit of pain medication, a knee brace, and an ankle brace, we took off for Fairbanks...
All in all another enjoyable trip to Valdez, I sure wish we could have had a rematch with Horsetail Falls, but alas, there is always more ice to climb in the land of "Blue Ice and Black Gold..."

(Not many pics from this trip since the camera wasn't working real well... More pics will come in the future...)