南方也有冰爬

jane

在北卡罗来那的山里，冰薄得很，只能用短锥， １３，１１厘米的。
常常Run out。攀冰的人不多，仍是个挺热火的小圈子。      

这是我在Scotch on Rocks的第一段上 (威士忌加冰块），可惜    译成中文就失去原味了。

CK

别有一番感觉。

jane

An excerpt from my Trip Report:

Believe it or not, there is climbable ice in the Dixie Land.

Typical southern ice is thin and unreliable, like your wishy-washy girlfriend.  Protection is scatch and sparse.   The useful screws are 11 cm and 13 cm ones, better paired with screamers.  Run out is the norm.   

....

Unable to coax a willing soul to be my sacrified lamb, I venture to the North Carolina highlands all by myself.  The first day, I climbed the Route 215 road cut alone on top rope.  Yes, I had to do some mixed climbing to set up my own TR, not sure which part was more scary.  A couple drove by, they told me Whiteside Mountain would be a better place and gave me some beta.

....


Whiteside Mountain was encroached by the ugly man-made golf course and flashy showy second homes.   Sure enough, five minutes from the trail head, I ran into a pair of climbers, Fred and Robin.  They asked me to take photos of them.  Robin refused to wipe blood off his nose.  No blood, no fun.  He pronounced proudly.  We struck a conversation (actually sizing each other out as strange dogs  do).  Fred was leaving; Robin was delighted to hook up with me. I had no problem to belay others,  first, for it gave me more time to check things out.  Like a "pick-up" game, while I was belaying Robin on the first pitch, Chris of Atlanta showed up with two dogs.  So we picked up Chris, whom Robin had run into in last season.  The Southern ice climbing community was still a close-knit circle, dropping three names you knew everyone.  It turned out we enjoyed the climbing and companionship very much.  We three swapped  leads.   I led the first pitch of Scotch on Rocks, placing two stubbies for what the hack.  Each tool placement had to be calculated to avoid the thin area.  Despite my effort of tapping first, I hit rocks a few times, later found frozen moss a better choice.  Only at the very end of the second pitch, stood a 12 ft headwall of fat blue ice, which reminded me what the ice was like up in the North.  Climbing became easy on the faithful fat ice, which I could lay back, hang on one tool with confidence, and drive another tool in without hesitation.  The low-tone "thump" was music to my ear. Sweet.  I murmured.  But Chris called it  "sexy", for it was the only word he could think of to best describe the quality of the ice.  

We hiked out in darkness, chatted loudly like these psyched teenagers. I saw the sparkles and smell the metals when crampons hit the icy rock.  What a wonderful day.

Jane