About a week and a half ago, I decided to head up to the Lake Placid area to do some ice climbing. A few phone calls later, and a crew of 3 (later expanded to 4) was assembled to tackle some ice. We started in DC, with a car full of people and one dog.

After a brief stop on the side of I-95 to give Butter (the dog) a chance to relieve herself, we pressed on through the traffic, finally escaping to I-83 on our way up to Scranton.

We arrived in Scranton around 9pm where Mike was waiting for us. Three of us moved into Mike’s car, and continued north! We arrived at the Cascade Inn just after 2am. After some gear unloading, we hit the sack.

The next day started (not too) early, with an 8am wakeup and a trip to the Noon Mark Diner for some breakfast. Then, after picking up some snowshoes at the Mountaineer, we drove to the North Face of Pitchoff, and hiked in. There was a bit of fresh snow, and we used snowshoes. Stopping just below “Central Pillar of Pitchoff”, we ditched the snowshoes and hiked up to “Arm and Hammer” and “Tendonitis”. Mike and I took “Tendonitis” while Sarah and Eric took “Arm and Hammer”.

It was a chilly day (8F in Lake Placid, considerably cooler up on the North Face ), so the climbing was a bit slow. We finished the climb and rapped off around 2pm. Figuring we didn’t have enough time to go do something longer, we headed over to the opposite side of the gorge, and spent the remainder of the afternoon climbing “Harlot” in the sun.

We went to Mr. Mike’s Pizza with 4 more ice climbers from DC. Delicious as usual. Post-dinner we headed to the Lake Placid Brewery to cap the night off right.

Sunday dawned earlier, rising at 7am. We racked up and drove past Keene until we’d reached “Roaring Brook Falls”. We’d apparently just been beaten to the climb (two climbers hiked in right as we got there), so we relaxed in the car for a half hour or so, figuring we might as well wait in a warm car instead.

Sarah and Eric headed in first, with Mike and I following 15 minutes later. On our way in, the two climbers we’d seen in the parking lot came hiking out… Must be another party on the route already!

We got to the bottom of the route to find a party of two working through the first pitch. Looking like it was going to be a wait, we settled in. Eventually, they finished the first pitch. Eric started up with Sarah belaying him as Mike and I got ready to follow them up.

As soon as Sarah had cleared the first section, Mike started up the climb. After a while, I felt the rope come tight on me, and I started climbing…

I arrived at the top of our first pitch (we linked P1 and P2) to find a large, flat, snowy area at the bottom of the final pitch. The first party had just started up this last section. Fortunately, today was much warmer (the Sun was even out!), so waiting wasn’t so bad.

Eventually, I started climbing. I got to lead the final pitch to the top. As with the previous pitch, it was great climbing. Even close to being a bit too warm with the Sun out! We topped out around 2 and hiked out. Getting back to the car, we pointed South, another weekend of ice climbing behind us.

The rest of the pictures are available on flickr: Adirondack Ice Climbing on flickr.