Bozeman Ice Festival ’08

This last Friday I had my first experience with Ice Climbing!  What better place to do it, but Bozeman, Montana?  Bozeman is actually famous for the ice climbing that is here! Well to get you up to speed, by friend Katie told me about the Bozeman Ice Climbing Festival over the first weekend in December and invited me to join her at the Women’s Clinic. This was a great opportunity because the festival also provided gear for anyone who didn’t have any…. aka ME! So I got to try out all of this great gear for FREE.

So Katie and I headed up Hyalite Canyon at 7AM on Friday morning to meet everyone for our meeting to start the day. After we were divided up into groups according to ability, we began hiking to the frozen waterfalls.

Once we go there it took a moment to take in the amazing frozen waterfalls behind me. And to process the fact that we were going to climb straight up them!

But first it was time to put all the gear on… beanie, helmet, harness, gators, crampons, mid-weight jacket, puffy jacket, gloves.

The fun thing about Ice Climbing is that you have SPIKES on all of your appendages, making you quite spiky! Next we had a demonstration by professional ice climbers!

Now it was time for my first experience climbing a frozen waterfall, but first I needed to get tied in and check all the safety gear.

The fun thing about ice climbing is that you can get aggression out by driving your spikes into the ice, which is also how you get a good hold in the ice.

Whether it is rock or ice that you are climbing, you usually can get some pretty amazing views of the surrounding area.

I’m an Ice Princess! I made it to the top of the waterfall and here everyone in our group had to yell “I’m an Ice Princess” when we reached the top! Silly instructor humor.

After my first climb, it was on to more and I completed 5 climbs that day so my muscles were barking! In order to focus on my foot placement and balance, we even climbed with one axe or mono-tool. Luckily there were multiple ropes set up for women to climb at the same time and not have much waiting in between climbs.

All in all Katie and I had a great day and an amazing first experience climbing ice!