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Intermediate Field Trip #6 Ice Climbing 2 - Heliotrope Ridge and Lower Coleman Glacier & Seracs

Trip emphasized French and Front pointing, building anchors and V threads, traversing, and leading two pitches on ice.

Richard Yasger Richard Yasger
August 20, 2018
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • The main hazard on this trip was extreme smoke.  Sunday was even worse than Saturday, with visibility almost totally obscured.  We stayed out a little late Saturday night so that we could finish the leads with each person leading the whole thing in two multi-pitch installments, and we could walk out Sunday.

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Swapnil, David Perkins, Steve, Kryzstof, Joanne, Hannah, and Dan Coate each performed excellently on ice screw placement, building anchors, traversing, and doing mock and real two-pitch leads on ice.  The road to Heliotrope Ridge was rough as usual.  Walk in and out involved a treacherous fourth stream crossing but everyone made it across, albeit soaked from the knees down in most cases.  Camp site was normal - we had it to ourselves, and we had adequate water at the stream's edge.