November gave us about a month of high pressure with COLD temperatures . . . when could be better to make a foray into the sport of ice climbing?!?! I got styled out with some borrowed gear from my coworker, and stoked that all my new ski buddies were actually climbers at heart!

My living room gear explosion told me we’re definitely not skiing anymore!

Sweet view of a very frozen Portage Lake from “Dreams of Brown Moose”

Scotty on a pretty cool climb up middle glacier in Portage . . . “it’s a little thin in here!”
Scotty showing us how it’s done . . .
All smiles for the new adventure 🙂
Me on “Ripple” in Eklutna Canyon . . . extreme! 😉
Where’d the ice go?
The last day out, Jared and I decided to head across Portage Lake to “Hands Across the Water” – later in the year, this gets snow covered, so I guess it’s a somewhat rare opportunity to climb. We went for the dawn start cuz we thought a bunch of people were headed out there, but it turned out we had it to ourselves for most of the day. Oh well, it was nice to watch the sunrise anyhow 🙂

Jared starting out
Sunrise over the lake
Go, Jared, go!
Hooray, we made it!! Is it time to go skiing yet?!?
Sweet view of Portage Glacier and the hundreds of ice skaters (that look like ants) below!