We drove to the Dacks early Friday morning. Becky led the first pitch of Multiplication Gully. I followed. Was wearing my neoprene gloves as a test, thinking that they would provide better dexterity and grip. They did do that, but my hands got insanely cold. The temperatures were in the single digits, the wind was blowing, there was no sun and the ice was very hard and brittle. I couldn't continue, so we bailed off the route.

We drove to Joe's barn and hung our gear out to dry by the stove. Then we went to South Meadow Farms to hang out with Jonathan, Beth, Maria, Sara, Joe and Jay. We sat by the fire and drank cider while Beth taught everyone a faster way to tie shoes. Very relaxing. Except for Becky who got to be an EMT for most of the time there when a guest slipped on the steps and banged her back. Departing South Meadow Farms, we spent the rest of the evening hanging out by the wood stove at Joe's where we were joined by Burk and Alex (aka Clive, aka CliveX).

Saturday morning we went to climb Mineville Pillar. The sky was clear, there was no wind, and the sun was beating down on our climb. Much warmer than the day before. We set a toprope on the main flow and both enjoyed the easy climbing up yielding ice. Then we set the mixed route left of the main flow. It is a 40' ice filled chimney, followed by 60' of pure rock. The climb was "very goofy" said Becky. We both managed to finish the route, albeit with several hangs on the confusing final 15' of the rock section. The rock did finally yield to a mixture of dry tooling and holstering the tools to climb with bare hands.

After finishing Mineville Pillar we were going to try some short climbs at Pitchoff. When we got there the wind was howling through the pass and visibility was down to about 50'. So instead of climbing we went to Noon Mark and ate pie with Burk and Alex. Becky stayed to climb Sunday while I drove back to Ithaca so I could teach my cross country skiing class.

Sorry there are no actual climbing pictures. When actually climbing we were too busy with the action to take photos.