Advanced Ice Climbing

If you have done our Introduction to Ice Climbing course or have climbed ice before this is the next step. The goal of this course is to get out onto steeper terrain and give you a chance to push your limits more on technically difficult ground and also introduce the skills necessary for undertaking longer and more difficult routes. We will refine the steep ice skills, the art of placing protection and work on creating safe belay anchors on multi pitch routes, as well as rope management. Mixed climbing is popular these days and we will also introduce the skills for this medium practicing dry tooling and thin ice techniques.

We base this course from Lee Vining and climb in Lee Vining Canyon unless storms preclude climbing here. This canyon has a significant avalanche danger and if there is very bad weather we will most likely climb in the June Lake area. In a good season Lee Vining has challenging long routes that are certainly the best in California offering ascents up to three of four pitches in length on short vertical pillars and sometimes with mixed rock and ice sections.

Itinerary

Day One

Techniques for steep ice
Belaying on steep ice
Anchor construction
Belay stance organization
Practice on a short multi-pitch climb

Day Two
Multi-pitch climbing on the Bard-Harrington wall or similar.