Lincoln Falls Ice Climbing

On Thursday December 27 I took my friend Todd up to Hoosier Pass for Lincoln Falls Ice Climbing. He’d never been ice climbing before and had been curious to try for a while. In his real life, Todd is a figure skater and coach. He’s my wife’s choreographer for her upcoming competitive ice skating program. That’s how we met.

I’d never been to the Lincoln Falls Ice Climbing area before, so a few days before our scheduled climb I took the family out for an adventurous drive. We crossed over Hoosier Pass from Breckenridge to the fork of HWY 4, about a mile South of the Pass. We stayed on the main road all the way to Montgomery Reservoir. There we took the right fork and found the parking area just after a wooden bridge crossing.

The Lincoln Falls Ice Climbing area was pretty obvious, ribbons and fangs of ice on the cliffs below Mount Lincoln, a Colorado Fourteener. We let the kids run for a bit in the parking area then returned home to send Todd the pics and directions to the trailhead parking. Hwy 4 is essentially a private road with no parking. It’s important to avoid conflict with local homeowners so reduce your impact if you climb here. In the winter the road isn’t guaranteed to be plowed or accessible to smaller vehicles, just FYI.

We met at the parking area and I passed out the rope, crampons, harness, tools and helmet I was loaning him. He had some Goretex hiking boots without a welt. I loaned him a pair of glacier crampons with straps to fit them [Black Diamond Contact Strap Crampons]. We wouldn’t be doing any WI4 anyway, since it’s his first day.

The morning was cold, windy and cloudy. The car thermometer read zero. Occasional icy flakes blew from the clouds. We packed, then hiked around the lake on the gravel road and then crossed the concrete and steel canal gate. After that you head uphill through the trees on a steep trail. With a foot of loose new snow on the trail it was a bit slick in spots with loose footing. I had trekking poles, but Todd did not. The last 500′ or so of uphill was in a boulder field with very loose footing in the snow. Hard to see the holes between the rocks. Finally we were at the base of the Scottish Gullies, on the left side of the Lincoln Falls Ice Climbing area.

Climbing at the Lincoln Falls Ice Climbing Area

There were a few parties ahead of us, so we got in line. I spotted a good looking WI3 band about 60′ tall to the right side. I told the other parties our intention to top rope that, and they said it would be no problem to them. This part of the Lincoln Falls Ice Climbing Area has an obvious good belay spot near a tree to the right of the base. After the last belayer took off up the left side of the route we got our gear on. Seems like the normal way of doing this climb is the left side. We’re just toproping so we want to stay out of their way as much as possible. I set up our belay above and left of the tree, to allow other groups to pass us as they climb.

[map kml=”http://charlesmiske.com/files/2012-12-27-092003-Climbing-Charles-Miske.kmz”]
Approach from end of road above Montgomery Reservoir. Parking is at a gate at Northwest Corner of the lake.

Todd doesn’t climb much, so I set him up with a Petzl GriGri Belay Device and demonstrated the auto-lock by yanking it hard. I told him:

“If I fall, just let go of the rope…”

I led up the right curtain at the Lincoln Falls Ice Climbing Area called Scottish Gullies and had Todd just feed me rope as I needed it. I set two screws for just in case. At the top of this bulge at about 50′ was a wide shelf of broken crust over deep powder. I was walking on talus and hoping it wouldn’t shift and slide. I set three screws vertically on a thick solid ice flow over a boulder. There were hollow sheets of ice on the surface all over the route. Todd unhooked the GriGri and I lowered myself through the top anchor to the bottom.

Todd made it up with a little coaching. The crampons flexed quite a bit and the boot heels barely stayed in. I lowered him and had him adjust the straps tighter then sent him up again. I had enough fun on my lead, first one in a couple years. I let him go up five or so times, giving him more and more refined instruction as he improved. There were a handful of other first-timers we ran into that day at the Lincoln Falls Ice Climbing Area. It’s a great place to take them.

Finally we ran out of time and had to leave. There was no decent way to lower myself from the right hand side and keep all my gear. I had considered doing a V-Thread with the rope and rapping off that. I’ve done that before. Fortunately just as I tied in, a couple came up and the guy offered to go up and bring our gear down. He was teaching a friend to climb, and wanted to toprope a bit and our rope looked just perfect to him. As he ascended our little route at the Lincoln Falls Ice Climbing area, his friend started asking questions about the failure rate of ice screws. Good luck.

We packed up our gear while he climbed, and then the rope when he tossed it down. I retrieved my pro from him and we said our good byes. The hike down was a bit slick and treacherous on the way down. We slipped and slid, doing some boot skiing in the ruts between the boulders. Be careful anyone who follows in our footsteps. At the canal gate the route became just a gravel road walk. We returned to our cars, and sorted and stowed our gear. We decided to go out to eat, and Todd had a taste for Mexican.

We stopped at Ready Paint Fire in Breckenridge to pick up my wife and her friend, then we went to Fiesta Jalisco in Dillon for a long evening of eating and sharing stories. Great day. Yes, a great day.