Sometimes long drives to nowhere payoff. Christmas eve gave Tanner Callender and myself an early gift this year.

Tanner making the short approach to get his appetite going for a Christmas eve feast

Almost looks like Kansas in the distance

Tanner enjoying a nice steep gift

We thought the climb was gonna be pretty mellow, but it was a nice steep chunk of ice. We continued up the hill side to another piece of ice we could see in the distance.

This piece of ice was really rad, but completely delaminated for about 60 feet. We looked at the mixed potential, but the rock was not offering up any weaknesses to place gear. The rock was super good, but with no gear options to get to the ice we were not left with many options. We stood at the base for about an hour looking for any sort of gear possibilities. After an hour we called it and decided it would have to wait for another day.

Mulkey imagining gear placements. We stood looking at the climb for so long I think imaginary cracks were beginning to appear.

We hope to someday to return and tick of this additional pitch of climbing soon. Sometimes it’s good to walk away…..

We continued to hike around and look for more routes, but were “only” rewarded with awesome views.

More first ascents to report so stay tuned in…