A Narrows New Year - 2011

The Plan:  I vacillated for a couple of days after Christmas between an entire weekend or a day-trip to the Narrows in PA.  In the end, settled on a 1-day trip departing the National Capitol region at 0430 1 JAN 2011. The Team:  Me, Ben K, Greg K, Ian F, and Mark E. The Approach:  As I was laying down to sleep after watching the New Year's ball drop with the family, I heard my phone chirp. It was Mark calling to say (in his best, "I'm too sick to come to work today voice") that he couldn't make the 0-dark thirty departure and would just meet us up there later in the day. I didn't envy him the solo nine hours of driving he was set on. I finally got to sleep ~ 0100, was up at 0300, and on my way to pick up Ian in Alexandria by 0330. I was a little late to our 0345 planned link-up and then we were off to link up with Ben at the park and ride at the intersection of the Beltway and I-95 north of the city we arrived just before our 0430 link-up, Ben got there shortly thereafter, and we headed off to link up with Greg an hour or so further north on I-95. That link-up also went as planned and we made it to the parking area below the climbs a couple hours or so later. The Climbs: We grabbed ours stuff and headed to Dead Deer Gulley (NEI 2/3) and started climbing sometime around 0800. I'd done this gulley the one other time I'd been to the Narrows and thought it would be a good start since both Greg and Ben were pretty brand new to ice climbing. Figured the moderate climb would allow us to get loose and figure out how to best organize for other climbs later. DDG climbs a rope-stretching 60 meters of NEI 2 up to the base of a short (40') headwall of NEI 3/ 3+ climbing out of a small bowl at the top. I dragged one rope up with Ben on the other end, throwing in a guilty couple of screws along the way, and Ian followed quickly behind with Greg on the other end of his rope. I was impressed with Ben's solid technique and talked him into taking the sharp end for a short romp up low angled terrain to set up a belay at the base of the right side of the headwall curtain. I took the next lead. I traversed onto the ledge at mid height of the headwall and weaved the rope behind the main pillar that was just touching down on the ledge. From there I skirted back down and around the skier's left to get below a short section of veerglassed (sp?) section of rock below the pillar and started up the 1/2 inch ice with the security of the rope TR'd behind the pillar above. That section and the 3+ pillar above went nicely over the soft hero ice and I was comfortably building an anchor above the two screws I placed enroute a few minutes later. Almost immediately after getting an anchor rigged around a tree I noticed the two stainless bolts and rings in rock just a couple feet higher. Ben followed and cleaned the pitch nicely, again demonstrating solid technique and we rapped. From there we traversed to the far left side of the headwall ice and Ben lead a nice NEI 2+/3- that I followed and cleaned while eyeing a couple of short, free-hanging pillars just to the left. After a short break Ben rigged a belay from a tree that looked like it might be strong enough to catch me and whatever parts of the pillars should they decide to let loose after I began wailing on them. I got one screw into good ice in the wall behind the bottom ends of the pillars and worked my way up between them to where I could get a tool into the ice above where the pillars joined together. Then came the moment of truth and I gently toed the front points of my Cyborgs into the ice of the pillars with on foot on the free-hanging ends of each. From there I thought I'd simply run quickly to the ledge at the top, hoping not to fall, but about halfway my sphincter compelled me to throw in a screw thus completely joining my fate to that of the pillar on the right. Another couple of moves and I was at the bulge where I promptly pulled a football-sized block onto my nose. Undeterred by the blood dripping onto my gloves, I focused on my technique and was quickly standing above and the pillars where still hanging below. I was stoked - as it has been a while since I remember something so committing! As I rigged a TR anchor a little higher, I noticed that my hands were shaking just a little - sweet! After a short break we changed up partners and I climbed a couple of short mixed lines on TR with Greg while Ian and Ben continued to tempt fate TRing the pillars I'd just described. At some point, someone brought up that we ought to try and give Mark a call. Turns out he'd been there for a little while and was soloing The Main Gulley another NEI 2/3 gulley further up the road to the climbers' left. After a short discussion Mark said he'd head our way and arrived a short time later. The four of us grabbed some lunch and generally puttered around while Mark sampled some of the lines at the top of DDG before we began rapping to the ground intent on getting on The Main Flow, a three-pitch, NEI 4 route just to the left of The Main Gulley that Mark had spent the morning on. We exchanged on wet single rope for a pair of dry doubles as we passed the cars and a couple minutes later were racking up at the base of the signature route of the area. And what a route it is. Three pitches NEI 3+, NEI 4, and NEI 3+. After a quick discussion of tactics for getting the five of us to the top as efficiently as possible with our three ropes and in the quickly waning daylight, I jumped on the first pitch. The soft (now VERY wet) ice was a joy to climb, though all screws were deemed suspect and placed at a decidedly positive angle to prevent their melting out. My 70 feet on the sharp end passed uneventfully, I got our anchor set and began bringing the others up. Mark came up next on the single rope followed by the other three on the two doubles (one person tied into the middle of one). Once we had three at the anchor Mark began leading the next, 75 foot crux pitch with me on belay while Ian brought the other two up simultaneously.  Mark started the pitch with the idea of combining the next two pitches but after cruising the steep pillar and reaching the top we decided it best, for communication purposes, to do the climb in three pitches. I followed Mark and dragged one of the double behind me. When I got to the top of the second pitch I was greeted by quite a sight!  Clearly the next pitch was way more than we could appreciate from below.  Straight up from the anchor flowed a dramatic combination of curtains, pillars, and flows for the next 100 + feet. The light was fading fast and it was obvious that would finish and get off in the dark but there was no way I could even imagine going home without climbing this spectacular pitch.  It didn't take much convincing for the others either - we all had headlamps with us afterall.  Ian was third to the belay and quickly transitioned onto the sharp end of the single rope and headed up with as many screws as he could gather. A half hour later it was completely dark and Ian had arrived at the anchor after a stylish and smooth lead up the best pitch of the day.  I turned on my headlamp and started up next and found the pitch to be everything I'd imagined and then some. At about 2/3 height the angled steepened more than I'd imagined it might and the ice began to have a distinctly hollow sound to it. At this point I began to understand Ian's hesitation at about this point (and I'm sure he was also loving the large chunks of ice that were calving off the flow to his left at about the same time).  Upon reaching the belay a new dilemma presented itself.  The belay was about 4 feet square and made of a ratty pile of tat on a decrepit looking tree with a stout 8 inch diameter:). After a short discussion and as per our SOP we decided to figure it out as it developed and began bringing the others up. Before I left the last belay we decided that Mark would go last thus bookending the two least experienced ice climbers (this was Ben's third and Greg's second day on the medium) of the group in the middle. At some point that planed changed since the new guys were apparently uncomfortable with the idea of both of them on the same (half) rope after dark, especially since we thought there would probably be a couple of moves of simul-climbing given the length of the pitch.  Greg came up next followed by Mark on the same rope and dragging the last rope for Ben. At some point in this sequence I remembered having the same not enough room at the belay dilemma just a couple months ago while climbing at the Garden of the Gods and that memory provided the solution. At this point we had access to two 60M ropes at the top belay and I was pretty sure that one could reach the big ledge at the base of the pitch. It did, so, just as we'd done in Colorado, we set up the first rope for repel and Ian headed down freeing up space for the approaching climber. We repeated this assembly line process so that there was never any need to have more than two people at the belay at any time. Additionally, once Ben started up on the last rope, I again realized we had more rope than we needed at the top anchor and I asked the others to pull the rappel rope (Mark had previously taken one of the doubles down with him) and rig a double rope rappel that would get the ropes all the way back down to the ground and get us on our way more quickly. Once Ben got up we rigged the rope he came up on for rappel and headed down while the three below us were already heading to the ground. After Ben left, I cleaned the four screws Ian had added to back up the anchor (did I mention that the tree was sketchy and the ice was suspect?) and headed down myself. By the time I got to the next belay the rest of the team was already on the ground and all I needed do was get rigged and go. In closing, this was an incredible, full-value (12 hours) day of climbing with good friends to start the New Year. And huge kudos to Ben and Greg who trooped up grade 4 ice, including a multi-pitch route in the dark by headlamp and all in great form - VERY impressive! Thanks again you guys, it was a blast!! (And, of course please add or correct6 anything here as necessary)