Ice Climbing 1 January 2008
From WP Wiki
The Start of Something New - Ice 1 Trips to Lake City
Our Ice 1 trips this weekend were the very first Wilderness Pursuits trips to the Lake City Ice Park, and the place has certainly won us over. We can't think of a better place to learn the sport of ice climbing than Lake City, and for the money, there is no better way to learn than with WP!
Lake City's Ice Park is just about perfect. Located right at the edge of town, you can literally walk a minute down the road for a coffee! Not that you'd need it - we brought enough food to feed a small country - bread, bagels, assorted lunch meat, tomatoes, onion, guacamole, fresh baby spinach, chips, cookies, candy bars, and hot cocoa! The other great thing about Lake City is that the park is right beside the road - no hiking to get there, which means that we could pretty much bring whatever we wanted - like tables, lawn chairs, and propane stoves!
The location is great, the access is great, but how about the climbing? They've got that going on too. There is a great variety of climbs, from short, low angled cascades to steep, vertical, smooth walls 90 feet high, to bolted, overhanging mixed routes - and everything in between! It is unquestionably one sweet spot for climbing.
We set up three ropes on Saturday and four ropes on Sunday, providing a good variety and sufficient number of climbs so that all of our students stayed busy and challenged throughout the day. Although the day started off cold and slow, by the time we had gotten the ropes up, gone over the basics of climbing ice and belaying, the temperatures had risen and the sun had graced our lunch spot. By the end of the day we even had one climb right in the sun!
Our students totally rocked the climbs, far exceeding our expectations for their first time on the ice! Everyone got their climb on, including the instructors. We ate our fill, pushed our boundaries, broadened our experiences, enjoyed the company, had fun, and got stoked to take it to the next level with the WP Ice II and III trips coming soon!
Big props to all our participants! Thanks for coming -
The Guilty Parties
For more pictures of the fun, click here!
Climb On!
Check out the Lake City Ice Park website!
Learn more about ice climbing!
Come ice climb with WP! It's not to late - check our schedule for more opportunities!
