Did you have a good trip? Did you hike for two days and never sink a tool? Did you camp at Deer Creek and survive? Or maybe you figured out why we call the rock Kitty Litter?

It seems that everyone I run into that has climbed in Cody has a story to tell. Please send me your stories and condtion photos of great times and bad times. Try to send them low res please. just e-mail them to me at aaron@coldfear.com

Update for December 18 2007

WOW what to climb!

Joy after pain (right) Pillar of the community (left)

Upper Triptych pillar (right) on the left is long neck bottle (left not touching)

Duck Soup

Mean Green

High on Boulder (left) Moonrise (right)

Festering Ice

Ice Fest

Moratorium with some bozeman climbers

Updates for December 2006

Broken hearts

Carotid artery. broken hearts/my only valentine

Smooth emerald milkshake

bitches brew/ transient alterations

high on boulder/moonrise

4th pitch mean green

We were on the following the last few days:
12/5 Broken hearts
In, but thin in spots. The 4th pitch was largely unprotectable due
to melting on the bottom section, and the top section was about 1.5 inches
thick with visible running water underneath. We chose the sneak around in
the drainage to the right. Above, carotid artery and my only valentine are
out.

12/6 Smooth emerald Milkshake
Fairly well in, but the crux upper pitches were losing a lot of
water and I wouldn't be surprised if they are somewhat compromised
considering the warm weather. In the same area, Bitches brew is missing ice.
Transient alterations looks thin in spots but all there. Fredericks of
Hollywood in. There is also a massive chunk of steep ice (maybe a rope
length, fairly vertical from what we could see) right beneath the trail just
down canyon of the Ghost approach trail. No one seemed to know what this
was. I think it is listed as unnamed in the map guide.

12/8 High on boulder
In, no problems. Bottom pitch is a bit hollow. Bolts still present
at top of 1st and 2nd pitches. Moonrise is climbable.

12/09 Mean Green
Mostly in, very wet on 3rd pitch. 4th pitch nearly melted out, very
chandeliered. We didn't climb it. Picture included. Sticky plum juice is in,
but thin. No fixed anchors found anywhere on the route. Looks like someone
hacked out the bolts at top of 1st pitch (or they were swept away sometime)
but there are ugly remnants. Might tell whoever is doing that if they are
going to chop, at least chop clean and don't leave more of an unsightly mess
than there was before. Sloppy.

Thanks again for your help and info. It was super useful to have a resource
to ask some questions.

Take care- hope to see you later this season.

Micah
Boulder, CO

MORE

Hey Aaron,
It's Nic, from Jackson, whom you met this weekend. Thought I'd send
along a couple close-up conditions photos, in case you can use them
for your website. Did Moratorium yesterday; it was excellent. The
direct finish is definitely 5 right now: chandeliered, steep, and
technical...great fun. Thanks for the beta this weekend. Later man.
Nic

Update November 17

High on Boulder/ Moonrise

First ascent????

Main Vein

Moratorium

November 2 2006 Photos

Ari Greenberg

Update 12-10-05

Broken Hearts (right) Corotid artery (left)

OOP'S We won't be seing that rope untill Spring!

5th Pitch Broken Hearts

David Light (AKA The Trango Man)

Update 12-09-05

Left Ventricle

Corotid Artery (left) Broken Hearts 5th (right)

Broken Hearts 3rd Pitch

One Arm Bandit 2nd Pitch

One Arm Bandit 3rd Pitch

Moratorium

Hostile Takeover 2nd Pitch

Aaron Mulkey Update 12-8-05

High On Boulder and Moonrise

Mean Green

Duck Soup

Horsetail

Festering Ice

Ice Fest

Mean Streak

The One Hitter

Pillars of the Community (left) Joy After Pain (right)

Keith McCalister Update 12-4-05

One Arm Bandit 2nd pitch

One Arm Bandit 1st Pitch

We Had a (Mostly) Fun Weekend

By: Ted Lange

Saturday, got to Bison Willy's around 10:30 am, sun felt really hot,
looked up at schoolhouse creek, and decided not to try anything
south-facing. So drove around and looked at Moratorium. The bottom
looked too sketchy and melted out - but neither of us have ever been up
there, so maybe it would have been OK. Headed over to Bozo's instead,
since it looked like a sure thing. On the way we admired the dramatic
final pitch of Joy Before Pain way up on the high cliff band. Bozo's
was fun - it's been so warm in recent years, I can't remember the last
time I climbed cold, brittle ice, so that was interesting. There was
one other party on the climb with us - Ron Brunkhorst guiding a couple
guys. Topped out around 2:00 so figured we had plenty of time to try
traversing over to Joy Before Pain. The traverse took 50 minutes, we
stayed fairly low on the slope and the route-finding wasn't bad - only
one scary spot that could have been avoided by going slightly higher.
Dropped into the Joy After Pain gully and found we had to rope up for
one short class 4 pitch to get to the big waterfall - the ice was hard
and somewhat chandeliered, so it was interesting climbing. The final
pitch looked really wild - definitely 5+/6 conditions. There are 4 or
5 icicles touching down along the bottom of the curtain and most looked
too fragile. But there was a somewhat fused cluster of icicles toward
the right side that looked like it would be pretty stable - looked like
you could climb up stemming between them, maybe even get a no-hands
rest then pull an overhang and get up to a decent stance before heading
up the rest of the steep, chandeliered column. Don't know if I would
have been up for trying it, but we were out of time, so it wasn't an
option. Then we decided to descend and rap Joy After Pain rather than
go back the way we came. NOT a good decision. Never having been up
there before, it was pretty scary. The last two very dramatic rappels
were in total darkness, so it was impossible to tell if the ropes were
down. It was a truly sickening feeling, standing on a big crumbly,
sloping ledge, beneath overhanging rock and a giant free-hanging
curtain, looking at the ropes trailing over the edge into blackness,
knowing there was no way they were anywhere close to down, and
wondering if this was the spot where we were supposed to put a V-thread
into non-existent ice! Then spotted the silhouettes of two spindly
little pine trees way off to the side. Scrambled over and began
agonizing whether or not a full rope rappel would get us down, and
whether the ropes would ever angling across the chossy cliff face. It
was clearly still a long way to the treetops, my partner was yelling
"should I rappel", I yelling back "NO! Not yet!" and feeling nauseous
at the thought of prussiking back up. Started stepping down to the
edge to try to get some sense of how far it was and joyfully discovered
a big yellow runner running from the larger of the two trees buried in
the snow. Can't imagine what we would have done if the ropes hadn't
pulled, but they did. The final rappel was still scary, but the double
60 m ropes got us down - barely. And we even found the glove my
partner had dropped. NOTE - Though it was dark, what I could see of
the overhanging rock up to the free-hanging curtain looked like it
might actually be solid enough - and have enough features for a wild
pitch of dry tooling up to the ice.

Sunday we climbed Moonrise to High on Boulder, up to the Pillar of
Pain. There was one other party on High on Boulder. The bottom half
of the Pillar of Pain was wildly chandeliered and covered in icicles,
but looked like there were two lines that might go. All the way on the
right-hand edge, and up the center linking a couple of grooves.
Decided to try the line up the center. It was kind of tricky, but I
was able to find good screw placements and it wasn't too pumpy (plenty
of stemming and ice-chimneying no-hands rests), until the top half
which was steep, but good ice. It was a dramatic line, up a groove to
an icicle-covered overhang, move left around a brittle column into a
tight, awkward groove, up to another overhang above which was the good
ice. The dramatic nature of the climb was greatly increased when one
wrong left arm swing while starting to move left around the brittle
column resulting in a very large chunk of ice breaking off, nailing me
in the right temple, and then almost knocking my right arm loose.
Blood everywhere, but when the bleeding slowed after a couple minutes I
decided to keep going and was psyched to finish this APTLY NAMED climb!
Ended the day with more rappels in the dark, then a drive to the Cody
emergency room for 12 stitches - finally got to sleep back at Bison
Willy's at around 1:00 am.

Monday we decided to try something south-facing, so headed to the Main
Vein and were amazed to find it very cold and not melted out at all,
though some sections were quite wet and the ropes got pretty frozen.
We didn't look at the first pitch, just assumed it wasn't in and went
around it. Got all the way up to the final dramatic-looking pitch, but
didn't have time for it since we wanted to get home to Bozeman for
dinner. Ran into Ron and one of his clients again on the way down.
Though the long sections of low angle ice were a bit tedious, it was a
good climb. Definitely hope to go back another time to do the whole
thing.

Ted Lange & Peter Aengst
Bozeman, MT

Another Ass Buster in the South Fork

by Dawn Glanc

With the warm weather slowly fading, the thought of ice climbing began to intoxicate my brain. I had been checking the cold fear web site for a favorable conditions report. Near the Thanksgiving time frame, I happened to log on and see what was in. The conditions were looking good, and I found a way to squeeze out of work for a few days. The first trip to Cody for the year was on. I came out with my favorite partner, Todd Andrew, with plans to climb some fat ice. As always, I was not disappointed.

Day one began a bit later than planned, but we still had a great day. Todd and I hiked into Too Cold Too Fire on Sunday. We thought it would be a good climb since the approach was short and we started so late in the morning. Once we saw the flow we saw that the little approach pitch was almost gone. We met some kids coming down from the flow, and they gave a very bleak report for conditions. Our chances of climbing fat ice were out. We bailed out of there, and headed back to the van.

I was bummed; I thought we were going to be shut down on day one. I got the idea to hike into Moonrise. It looked awesome from the trailhead. After a quick break, and some persuasion, we headed in to the climb Moonrise. This side of the valley always demands a creek crossing. We took the sandals and hoped that the river would be frozen. To our dismay, the river was partially frozen. We put on the sandals along the first bank, rolled up our pant legs and went for it. The ice would hold us on most of the crossing. On the last bit, the ice was thin; we both busted through the ice and were in up to our knees. After a bit of whining, we put on our boots and kept on trucking.

The ice flow was awesome. Moonrise was fat and blue. The ice was beautiful, and the climb went well. We were back to the base of the climb as darkness set in. We now had to face the hike down the drainage and the creek. The hiking was no problem, but the creek was a bitch. Todd made it across just fine. I fell in up to my ass on the way back. I walked back to the van soaked from the waist down. We were both tired and hungry, but very happy with the day.

Day two was another late start. We ventured up to School House Creek. We could see the flow from the road. It looked to be fat and it looked to be a very short approach. Wow, it was one hell of an approach or maybe we were beat from the day before. A bit of crazy scrambling up a few short ice formations definitely got us warmed up for the flow.

We went up the first pitch which was SUPER wet. Todd and I were both soaked to the bone. The water ran off my helmet, down my jacket and into my boots. After some discussion, we figured we would continue up the drainage and look for the "walk off". We went up the drainage a bit, and found no "walk off" terrain. We saw the other pitches, but it was getting late. By this time we surpassed our turn around time, so we headed down. The descent proved to be difficult. I stepped through the ice rapping down, so both boots were filled with water. Then I got soaked to the bone again going down the first pitch. The rope knotted on the rappel, and then the knot was welded. It was impossible to get out. I hung there, cursing, getting soaked and getting the knot out. Finally I made it to the base of the climb. Todd rapped down and we prepared for the scrambling. The hike out went fast, and we made it to the van at dark. It was a long day for just one pitch.

Overall the trip was great. Even though we busted our butts two days in a row, got soaked, fell in the creek and hiked more hours than pitches climbed the trip was Awesome. The work, the pain and the suffering is what climbing in the South Fork is all about. This area makes you earn your success. We plan to be back again soon. Next time we will be equipped with Gore-Tex suits and waders.