Spent a long weekend ice climbing in the Dacks. Tammy was kind enough to let us stay at her house, so winter camping was deliciously easy. We're running this, let's go...

We drove up Thursday night and arrived late. Waking not too early Friday morning, we headed over to Chapel Pond to climb Chouinard's Gully (NEI 3, two pitches). There was a party on the climb and another in line. All the nearby climbs were taken too, so we waited. Everyone was climbing competently, but it was still a reasonably long wait. The gully funnels falling ice, so you can't start the climb until the previous party has done both pitches and rappelled back to the base. It was breezy at the base -- busting five knots, wind whipping out my coat -- and hard to stay warm while not moving. Finally it was our turn and Guy led the first pitch (Guy would lead every single pitch this trip). I was feeling really sick and came down after following about 20' of the climb. Mike cleaned the pitch then he and Guy came down without doing the second pitch because they were worried about me. Sorry about that guys.

Saturday we woke early to be first on Multiplication Gully (NEI 3+, two pitches). This is an incredibly classic line. It's a big blue watery road. Today I brought warm salt water. After doing some research, I think the nausea and blackouts I sometimes experience are due to hyponatremia (I'm almost certain that is what caused me to blackout on Castleton Tower). Maybe the salt made a difference, maybe I was just feeling better. Either way, there weren't any more problems. So we were easily the first party on Multi Gully. I had bailed off this climb a few seasons ago when Becky and I attempted it. This time we finished the climb no problem. Guy led both pitches, with Mike and I following at the same time. I was climbing with one tool and nearly got the entire climb cleanly. Couldn't quite keep my weight over my front points one time while moving the tool on a nearly vertical section.

Got home nice and early so we could dry gear and repack for Trap Dike (NEI 2, 1900'). We definitely want to be the first party on Trap Dike, so we set an alarm for 3:30am, following directions in the Possible Real Life Scenario section of the Sunnto watch instructions. This ain't Seaworld, this is as real as it gets. We are easily the first party on the climb and could have slept much later.

We are out of the house by 4:10am and driving to the trailhead. Overnight snow has left the roads in terrible conditions, so it takes us an hour to drive to the Adirondack Loj parking lot. $9 to park for a day? And $20 for a three mile snowmobile ride? I suppose most Loj guests are rich, sitting in the lounge drinking Santana champ 'cause it's so crisp. But I find their prices to be exorbitant.

Anyhow, by 5:20am our snowshoes are creaking down the cold trail, sharply illuminated by our headlamps. We rapidly hike the five miles to Avalanche Lake. There we are met by a ranger who skied up from the Lake Colden hut. She tells us that a party of two didn't return from Trap Dike the previous day. She asks us to watch for any sign of them. Search and Rescue is gearing up, but they are still hours away and weather is keeping aircraft grounded. We are now the hasty team. We don't have cell phones or radios. We do have Guy's new SPOT beacon, but all that does is alert Search and Rescue who are already on the way. We work out a whistle code with the ranger, and start up Trap Dike. It is about to go down.

To save weight, we brought one 60m half rope. Guy is in the lead, Mike in the middle, and I'm at the end. We are moving as quickly as is prudent. We skirt the first two waterfalls on the right and belay at the base of the third waterfall. Guy leads this, and gets a belay about 110' feet from the base of the fall. Mike and I have to simul a bit of the falls before we are on belay. From here it is a long snow slog up the dike. In one long simul pitch we move to about 1000' above Avalanche Lake. If you are on the shore, then you're sure not me, oh. Our third belay is at the base of the slabs where we are exiting the dike. We take a 10 minute break to eat and drink. Snow is falling lightly and the wind has died down. It is downright balmy! There is absolutely no sign of the other party, but heavy snow and powerful wind earlier in the day would have completely obscured any tracks within a few hours.

We continue up the slabs, staying left to get some protection in the small trees. A little after 2pm we are at our fourth belay, just 150' shy of the summit. Here we decide to unrope and walk to the top. For safety, we avoid the icy slabs and stay on the low angle snow slope. This turns out to be a mistake. The snow is up to our chests in places and it takes us 45 minutes to reach the summit boulder. Would have been much faster to stay roped and do one more slab ice pitch to the top. Get your towels ready, we are soaked from snow and sweat -- and really tired. We find two rangers who are still searching for the other party and report what we have seen (or not seen) on Trap Dike. Then we take a short break, pack our climbing gear, put on our snowshoes, and start down Mt. Colden towards Lake Arnold. It is a long walk out, and our headlamps are reflecting off the snow by the time we reach the parking lot. An awesome day: 13 hours on the move, 11 miles, 1900' of climbing, and about 7000 calories.

Quickly we head to the ranger station where we learn that the other party has just come down. I meet one of the climbers and she seems to be in good spirits. Their main mistake was leaving the dike too early -- just after the third waterfall. Here they were lost on the lower slabs and caught in howling winds (one of the main reasons we did the climb on Sunday was because of the winds forecast for Saturday; a good choice since there wasn't even a breeze after 10am on Sunday). Between the wind and routefinding issues, the climbers were making very slow progress. Also, they were pitching out the entire climb. She told me that after 22 pitches they decided to bivy for the night. It turned out they were just 200' below the summit. I'm not sure why the rangers didn't find them early Sunday morning. My guess is they were a fair way right of the true summit. They climbed out and went down towards Lake Colden instead of Lake Arnold. But that is just my guess.

I'm really happy with all the decisions we made. I was climbing with one tool and my aluminum crampons which was a good choice (though I didn't have to lead). We brought eight screws when four would have sufficed, though we could have used a few more slings for trees. The two pickets were annoying but appropriate. Obviously, staying roped on the slabs all the way to the summit would have been faster. We also could have saved lots of time by skiing to the Lake Arnold/Avalanche trail split and stashing skis there. That would have converted six miles of snowshoeing into much faster skiing. But I'm not supposed to ski until my shoulder is fully healed... too much danger of falling on it. Yeah, I know what you are thinking, but the doctor didn't say anything about mountaineering. Of course, I didn't ask. Maybe he would have approved -- anything is possible.

That's it for the trip. Monday we cleaned Tammy's house, browsed The Mountaineer, and drove back to Ithaca.