Ice Climbing: Enjoy the process
Mallorie Estenson guides The Fang (WI5) in Vail, Colorado for Colorado Mountain School. Photo: Brooklyn Warren.
Objectively speaking, ice climbing is a highly improbable endeavor. Hiking? Makes sense. Skiing? Looks fun. Scaring yourself silly clawing your way up a frozen waterfall? It’s just… a different kind of fun.
I got to mentor several climbers this winter that wanted to cultivate their ice climbing skill. Once we get past the foundational technique, people always want to ask questions and know more about evaluating ice conditions. And maybe I can save you a couple hundred dollars by telling you what I told all of them: ice climbing isn’t a theoretical endeavor. The only thing that you can fast-track in ice climbing is good technique, and even then, most people likely won’t because it’s counterintuitive.
The way that you get good at ice climbing is by climbing a lot of ice in different conditions. It takes a significant upfront investment of time, energy and resources before you can become a confident, moderate ice leader. This isn’t to gatekeep ice climbing; I love it and I want everyone to have the opportunity to love it.
Ice climbers aren’t trying to gatekeep: they’re expressing compassion for novice, would-be ice climbers through the stern lens of consequence.
Unlike other forms of climbing, ice climbers navigate considerably more consequence in each outing. Climbers approaching a backcountry ice route need to be aware of avalanche hazard, possible rock and ice fall hazards, the conditions that create quality ice climbing and the conditions that deteriorate ice quality. (Spoiler: warm temps are bad. Now you know.) Climbing ice produces hazards: if there’s a party above you, you’ve been “scooped” and likely won’t be able to climb your intended route. Nobody wants to get taken out by a 15 pound chunk of ice falling at terminal velocity, let alone a 30 or 50 pound block. The lead climber assumes a considerable amount of risk, making all ice climbing a “no fall zone.” Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t because the gear will fail, it’s because the climber has daggers in each hand and on each foot. A small fall could easily result in a tib-fib fracture when one of those sharp points gets snagged and nobody wants that. Especially not deep in the backcountry where definitive care could be hours or days away.
Maybe you’re here because you already know all of that. You’ve put in the time, climbed 100 pitches of ice of varying quality, learned a thing or two about screaming barfies, discovered what climbing in too-cold-to-be-fun temperatures… and now you’re interested in next steps. I’m glad you’re here and I hope you get something from this.
Ice climbing, for me, is an external expression of internal conditions. I will happily bail on the easiest ice climb without hesitation when my head and my heart aren’t in the right place. This winter I went toe-to-toe with some of the most challenging conditions I’ve experienced in any discipline of climbing because my head and my heart were in the right place.
The most important lesson that I tried to teach each of my mentees, that I taught myself, is the process of looking inward before committing. At the risk of being didactic, I wanted to unpack this process because it’s a lesson that I hope to apply in and out of the backcountry.
If you only want to read about ice climbing, skip this part to the next line break. If you want to know how I came to be here, carry on reading.
To establish some context, I’ve been climbing for 10 years. I got 15 feet off the ground on my first pitch of outdoor rock in 2014 and was crystal clear on the fact that I would climb for the rest of my life. It started with sport climbing and trad climbing, which eventually culminated into climbing a spire at Washington Pass where I was exposed to the concept of technical climbing in the mountains. Since that first pitch, I have dedicated myself to learning all of the technical skills it takes to climb any route, anywhere. I have made a career of sharing those skills with others so that they can achieve their climbing dreams.
At the start of 2023, I had a close call with an avalanche. I was caught and carried 250 feet by a storm slab, but miraculously deposited atop 6 feet of avalanche debris. I walked away with one ski, a gaping hole in the ass of my pants, and a minor scratch. What I didn’t immediately realize is that the avalanche woke me up to the very real dangers I was exposing myself to day after day over the years. In the days and weeks after, I tried to suppress building anxiety by avoiding plans, drinking most nights to fall asleep, and eventually avoiding the guiding career that I’d invested everything into because I didn’t want to be responsible for other people in the backcountry. It was bad. And it got worse when my partner of 7 years broke up with me because I was, at that time, a broken person. My life had fallen apart.
In November of 2023, I got dumped on a Monday. I woke up on a Tuesday at a friend’s place in Seattle and knew exactly one thing: all I wanted to do was go ice climbing. By the end of that week, I traded in my Subaru for a Ford Transit van; quit the job that was sucking the life out of me; connected with friends in Colorado and had a guiding job lined up in Ouray. Instead of taking a planned trip to Indian Creek for Thanksgiving and returning to my empty life in Washington, I packed up my life and continued on to Colorado. Simultaneously, I secured a spot in the capstone of my avalanche education and registered for a PRO 2 in Silverton, home of the sketchiest snowpack I’ve encountered yet. I started to feel agency again.
Living in Ouray, Colorado it’s easy to see how someone could quickly become a proficient ice climber. Ouray is home of the world-famous Ouray Ice Park, there are endless world-class backcountry ice routes within an hour drive, and clocking in at 7,700 feet conditions are cold enough to form reliable ice with enough sun in the forecast to get out as often as you like. It’s a dream come true. And if you want to climb with me there, you can book me through Basecamp Ouray.
I’ve climbed a lot of ice in a lot of conditions: top-rope laps at the ice park, early season conditions on backcountry routes, late season conditions when the ice is “hooked out” from everyone else that came before me, days so cold that each swing produced a foot-wide dinnerplate and days so warm that ice screws made tiny fountains. I’ve climbed ice in Silverton, Cody, Canmore, Chamonix, Vail, North Conway, Quebec, Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, etc.
Without further adieu, I want to invite you into my decision making process when I’m leading ice. This is my secret sauce that really isn’t a secret.
First of all, I choose to climb routes that inspire me. I want to climb beautiful ice that features engaging movement where I might have to bear down, but I ultimately know I am capable of climbing. My assessment of my capabilities changes through the season. Sometimes I feel strong and brave, sometimes I feel tired and just want to enjoy moderate movement. If I’m considering an ice climb at the upper limit of my abilities, I choose to climb it at a time when I know I can bail if I perceive it to be above my paygrade.
If you were looking for hard-man energy, that’s not me. I climb with self compassion and kindness. And I climb things for the simple love of climbing. Sometimes that means I climb rad things, sometimes that means I bail off of rad things that I may or may not come back to later if I feel ready. I also make my intentions and abilities known to my partners. I will avoid climbing desirable routes with people that don’t create supportive environments. By the same token, I want my partners to have the freedom to have their own experience with a route. They should be equally invested in seeing the thing through, but if there’s reason to bail, so be it. There will always be another day to climb. And if they’re not invested, we’ve chosen the wrong day or the wrong objective.
I don’t rush myself when it’s time to climb. If I need an extra sec to get ready, I take it. If I anticipate I’m going to be working for it, I try to fuel myself with simple sugars (read: gummy snacks) before it counts. I also try to eliminate all distractions: I climb in the right gloves, adjust my jacket so that it won’t get caught in carabiners, layer down so that I feel zero restrictions, ensure that all of my gear is sharp the night before so that I don’t think about it while I’m climbing, etc.
This next part might upset people: I love ice climbing while playing music on my phone in my pocket. I have a few playlists that I employ for different reasons. Sometimes it feels like I’m going to war and I like to listen to this weird Viking music, complete with hawks shrieking and weird gutteral noises. It’s awesome. Sometimes I wanna feel like a gangster so I listen to BigXThaPlug. Sometimes I wanna feel confident, so I plug in my trusty girl pop playlist. It’s just me and the ice when I’m climbing. Might as well enjoy it. The music also helps me channel some of the different vibes I described above; it helps.
Before I begin, I try to read the route to understand where the path of least resistance is, where the restful stances might be and where I might need to place gear. With a plan in place, I start up the ice from a mentally calm and collected place that I’m going to refer to as baseline.
I like to think about metering my output. It’s going to take some level of commitment and energy to get to the top of the climb, and parts of the route are likely to be more demanding than others. Every movement is made with the intention of maximizing efficiency, remaining square to the ice, expending as little energy as possible to secure picks, trying to keep my weight on my feet. When it gets hard, I focus my energy on each point of contact and try to keep myself moving. Instead of dwelling on the difficulty, I try to calmly continue: next stick, next foot, next foot, etc. Managing my movement is an outward manifestation of managing the headgame that is leading ice.
It’s an oscillation game. Like a gas gauge, I like to think of myself progressing from calm green baseline, into the yellow as things get steeper and harder, possibly into the orange when I have to make a series of committing moves, but never redlining.
I can tolerate a certain amount of orange; it’s almost like I’m reading a pump-ometer attached to my forearms. I’m well aware of where dark orange and red are. I’m also well aware of where the last screw is beneath me. And where the next stance is above me. When the time is beautifully right, I flow through the orange and arrive at a stance where I’m able to bring myself back to the green… or at least yellow.
Before I get even close to orange, usually at a stance, I ask myself: Do I want this? And if the answer is yes, I climb.
