This is a picture of my buddy Bill ice climbing. He took a trip to Ouray,Colorado a few weeks ago to strap on various pointy pieces of gear and grab an ice ax and scramble up a sheer ice face. If the difficulty of the climb is not enough for an adrneline junkie....there is also the long cold Winter hike just to get to these ice falls. Clearly, this is not a gig for the disorganized or the trepidatious. If you screw up on one of these climbs...you are toast and you get to experience first-hand what 9.8 Meters-per-second squared feels like....
I like Winter and all...and enjoy ice skating and skiing...but hugging my Rum & Tonic is as close as I need to get to ice this close to my chest. But I tip my hat to Bill and his crew.
Ever since that movie where that guy had to cut his arm off... Nope!
ReplyDeleteI'd fly in an Extra 300, though. It's a good thing I'm not rich...
The coldest and most exhileratingly miserable sumer I spent was above the tree line in the Colorado Rockies between forth and firfth forms at Saint Grottlesex, where my prents sent me to hardenup and stop being such a sissy. it was Jaw-dropingly beautiful too, and I came to appreciate the true divinty that mde it all possible. I learned to be a man that summer, and saw the jaws of death elegantly come after me morr than one, almost fatally. The juxtopostions whether sublime; on one day reflned fielfds of alpine wildlife flowers followedb by gawping cavices of cold blue ice, flint rock, and frozen snow..
ReplyDeleteReading this fom the comfortble-beyond-belief UES sitting toom bings it me me quite vivdly. Thank you!
Must stopy typing illegivle blaterhs. Have been overserved tus everufm and t sows u my grammar. CSoory. Now must bot o ged...
ReplyDeleteNo worries Reggie...I figured it must be a cocktail or two making the fingers fumble...nevertheless...always glad to know you are reading here.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on this one. But with me it's usually a gin and tonic. And with the weather in California this winter it looks like that's as close as I'll get to any ice.
ReplyDeleteIce climbing is the genesis of one of my favorite terms in all of the outdoors: "the screaming barfies." When your fingers get too cold from swinging your axes against the ice and then re-warm so painfully you want to hurl.
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