The trail crosses a closed and snowed-over road that we follow until we come to a small pull off, which we ski through and then downward into the woods. The snow is nearly knee deep from the recent storm that accompanied the cold snap, so rather than plodding along, we attach touring skis to our feet and begin sliding along to our destination. We look at weather reports and then head out to a trailhead that leads to one of the promising climbing areas. Ice rarely follows the uniformity of the 9-to-5, and with climbable conditions often only lasting a day or two, climbers will take sick days, beg for forgiveness or do whatever it takes to make sure they are out there when the climbing is in. The three of us are lucky enough to have jobs that require us to go out and climb when conditions are good, but our meeting is not that abnormal among the serious ice climbers of the Southeast. Ostensibly, we are having a scouting and training day to check on ice conditions and dial in our systems for the clients we will be guiding and teaching over the next few days, but in reality we are all stoked to climb some ice. On a frigid Wednesday morning, Grant, me and another of our friends and fellow guides named Chad Jackabon gather in the parking lot of a business near Wintergreen, Virginia. Photo by Dylan Walton, Chasing The Horizon Media Often, skiing is the most efficient way to get to the climbing areas after a big snow. Grant Price leads the way with Chad Jackabon close behind. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. Most people groan at those temperatures ice climbers love it. What I see makes me smile as the 10-day forecast indicates single-digit nights coupled with overcast days barely breaking into the teens for the foreseeable future. Grant, who is one of the most laconic and analytical people I know, is a wizard at tracking the weather patterns and predicting when there will be climbable ice, so his out-of-character greeting sets me scrambling for my computer to confirm what he is telling me. But the cool thing about dreams is that, every once in a while, the stars align and they come true. Add to that the ever-present effects of climate change raising average temperatures, and it seems a fool’s errand to even try. It takes a dreamer to wander into the woods off-trail, bushwhacking through dense thickets in sub-freezing weather to look for ice in a place that is geographically not well suited for it. They say that all good stories begin and end in the heart of a dreamer, and that is particularly true of ice climbing stories in this part of the world. Climbers call it “taking their ice tools for a walk” as they hike through the hills searching for a shaded hollow with the perfect combination of foliage to block the sunlight and running water over cliff edges that will freeze into curtains of ice when the temperature drops. But in the Southeast, the ice season, if you can actually call it that, can be merely a few days. In many parts of the world, the climbing season for ice is several months long. When a fellow ice climber says that a climb is “in,” they are saying that conditions are prime and ice has formed from the top of the cliff to the bottom, creating a hanging curtain sturdy enough to climb. In the world of ice climbing, “in” is the magic word. However, we both belong to a bit of a rare and strange group in the region that loves to climb frozen waterfalls, an activity also known as ice climbing. Grant and I both make our living taking people climbing, which given that we live in Appalachia, means we spend most of our time climbing on rock. The voice on the other end of the line is my fellow climbing guide and good friend Grant Price. These are the first words I hear when I pick up the phone on a January afternoon. “Have you seen the forecast for the next week? I think by Wednesday it’s going to be in!” Photo by Dylan Walton, Chasing The Horizon Media. Climbers use ice tools in their hands and crampons on their feet to gain purchase in the ice. Chad Jackabon works his way up a column of ice.
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