Plate Ice Paradise

Tonight's sunset was AWESOME! We drove a few miles down the shore to see if there was any ice left after today's insane winds (which continue to blow as I write this). Yesterday there was ice going out across the lake as far as the eye could see. Today that ice is gone, but there remain pockets of ice that had already been built up along the shoreline. We found one such amazing stretch of shoreline by driving slowly along the shoulder of the highway and peering down through the trees at the beach. This spot looked pretty good from the highway, but it looked AMAZING when we got down to the beach! Large mounds of plate ice had been sort of mashed/fused together by the wave action from the lake. Some of the plates were sticking up at all different angles. In other areas the plates were all laying more or less flat, like you see in the lower right of this photo. The plates that were laying flat were reflecting the light from the sky, making for one of the most eye-catching ice scenes that I've ever seen. Topping off this incredible ice was this majestic cloud which, despite the high winds, was hardly moving at all. We watched the cloud turn from grey to orange to pink and back to grey again as the sun went down. This is a sunset that will live forever in my memory as one of the most glorious sunsets of my life. What made it absolutely perfect is that I got to share the whole experience with the woman I love, who in exactly one month will be my wife :-)

Nathan and Daryl in the Tournament

After watching these two play this last week, I knew that they would do well.

I would not have wanted to be playing against them.

They played tough, fierce games against the competition.

They ended up in the championship game. They won their bracket. Woohoo! WTG, guys!

Conditions outlook...?

This morning I went out to check the state of ice here in SWPA. As expected everything that had been climbable now wasn't. All the wonderful ice from the last cold snap fell and everything currently on the wall is new build over the last 48 hrs. The current local forecast is for temps to be below freezing through Monday, then a warm up is predicted through the long term thereafter. Here's a few photos from today.

Gun Club, Pistol Whipped Wall - devastated

Gun Club, Main Wall - devastated

SCII, Overview - Very wet and devastated

SCII, Beast and Grand Central Walls - devastated and rebuilding

Ohiopyle State Park, Youghiogheny River - Up and roaring

Although I didn't take any photos, Meadow Run climbing areas have been wiped out as well, but are very quickly rebuilding. With a few cold days ahead, Monday should prove to be the best day to hit the local ice. Irishtown might have some formations up by then as well. I'd forget Krahlick, Confluence, Layton Falls or Stewarton. Happy hunting if looking for local, climbable ice this weekend... With a miracle the forecast for warm will change to cold and produce epic conditions! Unlikely....but possible

Broad-winged Hawk

As we drove home from kayaking the other day we had the distinct pleasure of an encounter with this beautiful little Broad-winged Hawk. We were driving slowly down an old logging road when we came around a corner and this hawk, who had been sitting in the road, flew up into a tree. It's not that uncommon to run across these guys while driving the back roads of northern Minnesota, but usually they fly further into the trees and you can't see them. This one landed on a branch in a tree right next to the road and sat there for a minute or two before flying away. I was able to get several nice shots of it. It was definitely a nice little bonus to our day!

Hot Chocolate

Hot Chocolate, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

Thick hot chocolate I made back in January.

I am going to try this recipe again - it's essentially chocolate melted into milk. Really delicious!

Plant Pest: Magnolia Serpentine Leafminer

While this is just an occasional pest of Magnolia, the Serpentine Leafminer causes damage that is highly visible (I kind of like it). All Magnolias species are susceptible to this pest, but I rarely see it in nurseries or landscapes. Scale and Twig Borers are much more common and damaging to Magnolias in the South.

Injury is caused by the larvae of a specific moth, Phyllocnistis magnoliella, which burrows through the upper leaf epidermis in a meandering fashion.
The life cycle has not been really been studied, so there is not much information about when to time pesticides to control this pest.

Luckily, this Leafminer is seldom a serious pest of Magnolia (and it does not infest any other genera of plants). The best way to manage the Magnolia Leafminer is to remove infested leaves as the trails appear.

Begin looking for injury in late summer- Damage will begin to appear in early August if the moth has laid eggs on the leaves.

Fantastic views at Xigia Tavern during lunch

Leaving South Xigia Beach, we hit the main road and just 500 metres away we saw this tavern with a spacious parking lot. We stopped to check it out.

It turns out that the tavern is perched on the mountain sea cliff and looking out to the blue Ionian Sea. Fantastic views! I personally loved the thick trees giving shade to the diners, they bid a very cosy and romantic ambience, and oh, the birds happily chirping away from tree to tree. Well, what can I say? In this restaurant, you do not need man-made music to accompany the beautiful view.

So I told the Dutchman—this is it. We are not going anywhere else for lunch =)

When we came back from holiday I did some research on the restaurant and it turns out that its specialty is seafood and the owner is Italian who migrated to Zakynthos, Greece. This restaurant is very popular among the locals and the tourists as well. That is why it took us a LONG TIME to be seated. Guests came pouring in and we have to wait patiently in line. Dutchman was grumbling and ready to leave but I put down my foot and told him to be still.

Eventually we got our table with a nice view. Because the restaurant was buzzing with diners, ergo overcapacity, it took a while for them to take our order and for the food to arrive. I didn’t mind, I am enjoying my view with a glass of wine while waiting. Plus they gave us free bruschettas. That was a surprise indeed and it was lovely.

Dutchman ordered Greek salad and for me steamed mussels. We were going to order more but when the bruschettas arrived we decided to just leave it as it is. The food is enough already for both of us. Food here is 4.5 stars out of 5.

At the back of the tavern I saw a garden and an infinity swimming pool. It looked like a perfect place to hold a party or just to privately chill out. I wonder if the owner lives here as well? Well, one thing for sure they have a gorgeous property with breath taking views.

Waiting for our lunch to arrive...

There were lots of birds chirping from the trees and we noticed as well that there were many bird houses hanging above us.

Finally, lunch has arrived!

Bruschetta came first.

Greek salad never tastes the same outside Greece. Take note, onions and tomatoes here are sweet.

My steamed mussels and half a lemon.

Another angle foto of the taverna's terrace.

The verdict: food wiped out clean.

The taverna has its own private infinity swimming pool as well:

From our table we can see South Xigia Beach where we swam in the morning:

A boat came to unload its passengers for a swim:

Garlic and pine corns, they seem to be the theme of this tavern:

Next: More beautiful remote beaches!

Leavenworth ..

Ian, Lori and I headed up the Icicle to get some late season cragging in. Ian was interested in leading Classic Crack and we were all going to top-rope it. Slightly cold but decent weather was in store, and on a Tuesday in October, we could pretty much guess there wouldn't be a line at Classic Crack.

We climbed most of the routes on the 8-mile rock. Lori and I were disappointed with our attempts at the old school 5.8 Classic Crack, after we cruised the 5.7 Givler's Crack a few weeks earlier. We were expecting our performances to be better. My morning performance was really weak as I couldn't even manage a clean ascent of the 5.7 Mickey Mantle. I felt somewhat redeemed when I was able to climb Twin Cracks (5.8) fairly easily as our last attempt at 8-mile rock. Ian lost a #1 C4 Camalot deep into Classic Crack. A NOLS group showed up and they said they would attempt to retrieve it. (They were unsuccessful.)

We then hiked up to Be-Bop Rock where Ian and Lori both led Bit of Heaven, a slabby 10a. I gave it a go on top-rope, then led the uninspiring 5.6 Junior's Cookin'. At that point, the sun went behind the ridge, and it was time to head home.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience of finally trying to climb Classic Crack. I was hoping for a better performance, and I'm not going to let that get me down.

Ian and Be-Bop Rock.

Autumn in the Icicle.

Hiking out.

Lori's pics are here.

STH the SLC METRO ICE

Every time I am lucky enough to visit SLC I get a terrible urge and want to move there. If you wonder why...it is always sunny when visit and you can ice climb, ski and ride your road bike all in the same day if you were really ambitious. (well every time I've been here anyway ;) And there are a few locals that actually such things.







A bunch have asked I document some of the ice climbing here. I'm stuck in the airport with time to kill so here ya go. This is Stairway to Heaven in easy conditions and light for the grade right now on the first 5 pitches.(thankfully!)



Here is a quick look at what the locals do before going to or after work...the bastards! Make sure to dbl click to get some perspective. And this is just the "junk" ice around the city. Cool thing about OR? There are plenty of rope guns running around you can put to work;)













10 min approach with the highway below and up to 10 pitches later in the winter.

Yep, they are the chit..BD's new, "Stinger" monopoint.More coming on them shortly.

I'll miss you

I can scarely believe that the Bloodroots are almost gone. Every year it seems I haven't spent enough time with them.



Closed up for the night.

I visited a really special place with some of my fellow wildflower nuts. I'll share it once I can get Blogger to start cooperating better... I'm having a little trouble uploading photos at present.

Mountain Top and Valley

One wonderful thing about where Nathan's family lives is that you can see the mountains pretty much from anywhere you are at there. The scenery is breathtaking. It is so lush that we find ourselves saying, "it is so green here" each time we visit. It's a wonderful place to enjoy nature at its finest.





I never tire of this scenery. I don't think I ever will tire of it. I mean, can you imagine seeing this and saying, you know what...I'm done with all of this beauty? Nope, not gonna happen.











What I rarely did when we lived here, and really enjoy now though is the ride coming in. The ride that allows us a whole different view of this magical place. The drive over the mountains, where we look down on the valley below. That is what we enjoyed today.



It is still so green and still so beautiful.



Just an entirely different perspective.



Living the life in Virginia!

Nomic, Quark and Ergo low profile Hammers?

"Colin Haley photo of Bjørn-Eivind Årtun on their new route, Dracula, Mt Foraker, June ."



Finally!



At Bjørn-Eivind Årtun's suggestion afterhissuccessful '10 Alaskan season, we have redesigned the C-T Nomic hammer to make it even lighter with a 4mm hammer face instead of the previous 7mm face. The new hammer will also fit the newest Petzl Nomic, Quark or Ero tool heads and the newest picks cut for a hammer or adze. The hammer face is thinner to shave some weight andbalance betterbut the hammer still gives complete coverage to the back of the Nomic.



We areFINALLY shipping them AGAIN!



























This hamemr will fit the previous and current production Nomic, the new Quark and the new Ergo.

With the 7mm hammer Ipreferred aone hammer set up. The newest 4mm hammers have changed that. The balance is betterwith the 4mm hammers.A technical tool like the Nomic will never be ideal for pounding pins (that won't change) because of their large clearance of the handle shape, but our smaller profile hammers certainly make it a lot easier and save the head of the tools from damage. They are easy to attach with perfect fit and finish.



The C-T makes the newstQuark an even better (sweet!) tool for all technical climbing.



For long committing alpine climbs they are a minimalistic option that works. On the scrappy mixed route where you need to pound the occasional pin or your own tool, they work.



Our current 4mm hammers *easily* fit the newest picks from Petzl. They are CNC machined from bar stock chromoly steel and then heat treated to hammer hardness and hand finished in our shop.



Not all Petzl heads are created equally. I have found a few that require very minor hand fitting the pick and hammer with a file. It won't take much and is easy to do. If you can sharpen a pick any fitting required will be easy. The new Petzl picks require cutting the back off the hammer interface from .15" to .04" on the bolt hole. Again easily done with a hand file. Just cut enough material to line up the bolt hole on hammer and pick. You want to be just shy of the bolt hole when done. Way easier than it looks or sounds.









Hammers are$60 ea. These willfit the current production picks and is now even lighter with a 4mm hammer face...@30g per hammer and much easier to fit than the Petzl offering



Buy them now while I have them in stock and ready to ship. We do fourproduction runs a year and generally sell every run out before the next.



More here:



http://coldthistletools.blogspot.com//08/ice-climbing-gear.html