What gets us Stoked, X
So this is the 10th and final installment of our video series. We will be continuing to share videos on our blog just differently. If you’re on a computer you can look on the right hand side of this post you will see a new box called “Recommended Videos”. These are videos we’ve watched that have thought us something, inspired us or have just got us stoked and psyched to get outside and push ourselves. So here they are, our final 5 videos in our “What gets us Stoked” series. Enjoy! Are you Wreckage or Salvaged? Exploration Trail Running in Winter The promise of Youth… Inspiring! Being in the...
Mount Baker: Ice Climbing
“Did you see the BCMC call out for a trip to the Mt Baker seracs to do some ice climbing? Do you want to sign up?” This was the question I received in a text from Leigh one morning in October. I texted back within seconds saying “Anniversary at Baker!” It just so happened that the Thursday before the trip we would see our 8th year wedding anniversary come and go. This seemed like the perfect way to see in another year of adventure together. We signed up for the trip and started dreaming about climbing ice again. The only type of ice that Leigh and I have climbed before has been waterfall ice, some in the Rockies and some in the Coastal Range, so climbing glacier ice was going to be a new experience for us and it was going to take some time to knock the rust off of our recently acquired ice climbing skills. We set up top-ropes at the first wall of ice we could walk up to on the glacier. These first climbs proved to be more difficult than anticipated, and everyone, albeit 1 or 2, had to shout “take” more than once on their way up. There were several bulges and overhangs to contend with and the density of this ice was proving to be very hard and made for some very ginger tool placements, as no crampon or ice pick was really sinking in. All part of the learning process and also part of the beauty of ice climbing, no two walls of ice are ever the same. Once we had our fill of these climbs we decided to make our way over to an area where 2 from our group set up a few more ropes. We had to weave around gaping crevasses, jump over cracks in the ice and down-climb some sections just to get to the climbing area. It was unnerving but so much fun at the same time. It was really starting to feel like we were on another planet with such an other-worldly almost eery feeling. The only sounds apart from the odd shout of “on belay” or “climb on” was the groaning and cracking of the glacier. I walked the final narrow ice bridge towards the crevasse where the top-ropes were set up to see that you had to rappel into the hole if you wanted to climb. I felt a reluctance at first, as my first instinct is to always avoid being inside a crevasse, but I had to find a way to push through it and I joined Leigh and our friend Scott down below. Did someone say...
