Adirondack Mountain Festival

Cold Axe Bitches: l. to r. Naz, Emilie ( guide), Annie, Shyana, me, Uly, Hannah, & Becky (guide)

After an unusually warm week in the Northeast, we feared our weekend in the Adirondacks may be canceled due to a severe lack of ice (a very important component when ice climbing). We took our chances and headed north for a weekend away if nothing else. We took the opportunity to couchsurf with a native Californian (also from Sonoma County) now living in Saranac Lake, just outside Lake Placid. We arrived Friday evening to Jacob’s wonderful apartment above a shop on main street in Saranac Lake, and to our pleasant surprise he informed us all the beginning ice climbing classes were still on for the next morning.
The festival was sponsered by an array of outdoor companies that provided demo gear for our ice climbing adventure. After gearing up, Alex & I split into groups of our respective genders. My all womens group had been cleverly named “Cold Axe Bitches” and was headed up by an incredible woman climber Emilie Drinkwater. Emilie appeared to be dancing up the ice as she gave us a quick demo at our first climb “Lions on the Beach.” My group was comprised of women who all had at least some rock climbing experience and a few with some ice climbing exposure. As it came to my turn on the ice, I discovered climbing ice was much more difficult than Emilie made it look. I successfully climbed the two routes at Lions, and was sufficiently soaked after my last climb. The “frozen” waterfall that we were climbing was actively melting, adding a very cold and wet element to the climb. After each having a few goes at the climbs we decided to give the guys group an opportunity to switch routes with us. They were just a short walk from us at another location called “Happy Hour,” which stood at approx. 30ft compared to the first wall at about 80ft. This allowed us to get some more climbing in on an easier wall, with our already sore and tired arms. In addition we were able to experience climbing ice that was more solid requiring a slighlty different swing of the ice axe. I stuck around the first wall so I could snap off some photos of Alex climbing.
Alex took to ice climbing with relative ease as he does with most things he tries. He also managed to stand out in his group as he was one of only a few guys that had any climbing experience at all. One of Jacob’s friends, a fellow journalist named Mike, was enrolled in Alex’s group and ended up writing a piece for the local paper. You can check it out here.
http://adirondackdailyenterprise.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=10008
We were told by Jacob that a photo of Alex was included in the final print. We have yet to see it for ourselves so we can’t confirm, but it is possible that Alex is a big star up in the small Adirondack town of Saranac Lake (pop. 5000) There are some photos below of Alex climbing at “Lions on the Beach.”