- Jason's trip report with photos, download the PDF file HERE.
- Mark Ice Climbing Video
This year’s Blue Lake trip (Friday 27th of July to Wednesday 1st August) was going to be somewhat different since most of the regular players (Bryan, Patrick, Will) were either overseas or injured and a new (and younger) crew was needed to fill the void. After Diane introduced me to Jason and we started to talk about a possible ascent of Denali next year, we decided that a trip to Blue Lake might be a good training ground for bigger things to come. Jason was keen and promised to get a crew together, which started with ten people, who were interested and eventually dwindled down to six commitments. The final players were Jasmine, Will, Mark, Jason, Leo and Roman.
With a training trip to St. Peters climbing gym and Marks kind equipment support (Camp Hike & Climb), we set off on Friday lunch time in our hired Kia van. Leo and Roman ended up using another car because sleds, barrels and huge amount of salami made it impossible to fit everything in the car. This year most of the climbers decided to hike in with snowshoes and Wilderness Sport in Jindabyne provided easy rental for a few missing bits. After a nice Thai meal near the Discovery Holiday Park we decided to sleep in the little camp ground near the entrance of the snowy mountain national park. There is not running water, but change and undercover cooking facilities. We spent our first night there and to keep costs down left one of our cars in this car park.
Saturday early morning after sorting our gear we left for Guthega and the overnight car park for our four days at Blue Lake. On that day light like a noble visitor stayed with us briefly and then moved on. Jason and Jasmine were tackling the ‘barrel’ full of goodies, while Mat and Will worked the sled. The first downhill wasn’t too bad especially with the old flying-fox replaced with a brand new bridge, but then the steep slopes around the first knoll were difficult to navigate with loaded backs and sleds. By the time we hit the straight run towards Illawong hut and the snowy bridge we were baking in the dying sunlight. It was about 2pm when we hit the bridge for a long rest. “Are we half-way yet?” Not quite.
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Guthega |
Retired Flying Fox |
Breakfast |
By the time we found a step-across to the little sidearm of the snowy the hills were starting to get steeper and the rolling barrel and sled were slowing us down considerable. It was 4PM when we hit the tree lines and ended up on the bottom of an enormous uphill. Since most people were on snow shows, the continual sideward movement of the slopes was producing sore ankles and made for very uncomfortable walking. It was better to go straight up or down somebody suggested and since we were training for Denali this mother of a hill was perfect! Well almost, because it just never seemed to stop. Every time to you appeared to reach a peak it turned out to be just a little lull with another one waiting just behind. This monster was relentless and so steep that not even my fur skins would get me up straight. I can only image what it was like dragging a full barrel and sled up this monstrosity.
By now darkness was slowly creeping in and still the slope continued. Jasmine, Leo and Roman made it up first while Jason, Mark and Will fought the hill with lots of appendages. I decided to push for the next ridge were I knew we could get views of Blue Lake, but now the fog was beginning to set in. Gaining the ridge I thought I saw the entrance to Blue Lake and investigated. Skiing down for a few hundred meters sure enough we were close to the entrance and had gained the last ridge before the lake. I returned to Jasmine and Leo and thought that they could start setting up tent, while I would guide the rest of the party with the heavy loads. Once we set off towards the lake the whiteout increased and visibility was now terrible. I started to worry about splitting up the party into two groups. Views of Blue Lake had now disappeared and I decided to go back to the ridge and wait for the load bearers. It was now blowing a gale and temperatures were plummeting fast. Far below we could see the Jason, Mark and Will fighting to gain the ridge were we waited. It seemed to take a long time and we could only glimpse them between fast moving snow drifts. When they were close enough Leo and I headed down and helped them the last meters up to gain the ridge. Now we were all safely back together again in one group.
I knew Blue Lake was now a short distance off, but when we set off to find it, poor visibility and falling darkness had me puzzled. “I had just seen it? But now it was suddenly gone.” I could barely see ten meters ahead and we were reaching our limit fast. Mark saved the day and the GPS coordinates we set beforehand confirmed that we were only a hundred meters from our campsite. By the time we hit the lake it was dark and the blizzard was toying with us. Setting up camp in darkness and strong wind was ‘interesting’ and by the time we collapsed into our tents we had barely enough energy to eat. Mark and Will were brave enough to attempt cooking some freeze dried food but Leo and I just attacked our 1.3 kg salami and cheese. Amidst the spindrift and howling winds, sleep came quickly that night.
There was an uncanny stillness the next morning and the condensation of our breath had formed a thick layer of ice inside our tents. In short everything was wet and my sleeping bag was sticking to the inside wall of the tent were it had frozen solid. I was scared to look outside though the stillness was giving me confidence – go placidly amidst the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence. Struggling with the iced up zipper of the vestibule I saw the first sliver of light on the horizon rising behind Blue Lake barely fifty metres away. It was a perfect dawn – no cloud in sight and perfectly still, the blizzard had gone and relieved I crawled back into my sleeping bag.
We decided to take it easy this morning, feast and relax in the warm sunshine surround Blue Lake. Temperatures must have hit the twenties and it was not until midday that we set out to explore the climbing conditions around the lake. But not until after nearly collapsing the thin snow bridge over the lake entrance and ‘discovering’ water the cold way. There were icefalls everywhere and I had never seen such variety, more than twenty distinct little rock outcrops with hanging icicles. Where should we start: here and there rays of light would reveal how empty air could hold a wall of drunken snowflakes. We picked the biggest one within range and discovered a flowing icefall that ran over three rock steps: the first one with a steep constriction of solid ice that led to a precipitous snowfield, followed by a vertical but thin ice-wall over solid rock (surely it would not hold our weight?) and finally a massive slightly overhanging wall of thick blue ice that featured an easier-looking chimney to the right. We warmed up on the first pitch but skirted around the second wall for safety to gain the warm-up chimney out to the right. Once we had a top-rope in place, we could attack the more difficult sections of the multi-pitch icefall in one go. We played with Marks brand new ice-axes until late afternoon and decided to call in early as the fatigue from the previous day was taking its toll. Since we had a perfect top-rope setup we decided to leave it in situ and come back for the harder stuff the next day. That night we celebrated in our home-made kitchen hewn out of perfect snow.
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Tiramisu at Camp
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Dinner |
Early morning sunrise |
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Basecamp with Salami
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The infamous barrels |
Resting at the snowy bridge |
Day two started even better than the first one with beaming sunlight and perfect skies rarely seen in these parts of the world. After a massive breakfast cooked with lightning speed by Mark’s MSR XGK we were off again to hit the ice. Today it was time to taste some steepness.
The previous day we had avoided the vertical second pitch of the ice-fall as well as the overhanging third pitch but today it was business time. Mark led the way and punched straight through the steepest part of the blue ice and to our amazement it all held together. The third pitch was trickier and had a massive hanging icicle on the right hand side. We decided to leave it alone after a falling ice-shard had corked Will hard on the right arm (sorry). Quick ascents of all three pitches in one go by Jason, Leo and Will meant that it was now Jasmine’s turn to have a crack at the ice. Unfortunately, we had a hard time fitting crampons to her boots, and with only Will’s appearing to fit, it was touch and go whether they would come off during the climb or not. They stayed on and Jasmine became perhaps the first Australian female climber who had climbed steep blue ice before going rock-climbing outdoors.
But that was only the beginning and after a leisurely lunch in the beaming sun we opened up another line, but this time a mix between rock and snow, which was capped by a beautiful steep ice-wall. It even took a camming device and clocking in at 25 meters we pushed our rope right to its limits. Playing on this gem kept us busy all afternoon until the setting sun teased us once again towards our snowy dinner table. On this second night, when the temperatures dropped and it began to snow, Jason began to reveal the secrets of his barrel. It was unbelievable, red wine, honey whiskey, tiramisu! Jasmine brought out her hot chocolate and marsh-mellows, while all I had to show for myself was my 1.3kg of salami!. We feasted like kings that night and talked until late into the night (8PM!)
Our third and last day surprised us once again with balmy sunshine, cloudless skies and no wind at all. Yet at our backs we could always hear time’s winged chariots hurrying near; yonder all before us lay, deserts of vast eternity. Blue Lake was certainly on its best behaviour that day. We had one more chance to conquer one of the many ice crags that had formed on the steep faces of the lake. Yesterday we had spotted an immaculate column of vertical blue ice high up on the lake and we headed straight for it as soon as we had gorged ourselves in the warm base camp sunlight. By now everyone was getting a little more experience in front-pointing and using Marks Black Diamond Viper leashes so we headed up higher onto the lake wall and established a comfortable belay ledge. It was Jason’s turn to attempt the steepest wall of the ice, which was capped with a little roof for good measures. We started to take falls today since the steepness combined with the occasional snow batch made for tricky onsight conditions. The pillar was mine, but I fell early, so it was up to Mark, Leo and Jason to climb it clean. Will even managed to conquer the middle ramp of the face with his toenails coming off! Finally Jasmine, after some coercion, was unstoppable and flew up the ice fall in perfect style. The last day past much too quick and we headed back to camp early for some fun in the sun and to prepare for our alpine style early morning departure the next morning.
It was time to head back to civilisation and once again the weather goods smiled upon us with early morning fog clearing to a hot day. This time the going was much faster and we found a perfect undulating trace left behind by Alan Silva, who had joined us at basecamp and marvelled us with stories of his many adventures. It took us a mere two hours of hard work with sleds and barrels to gain the snowy river bridge. From there a further two hours brought us to the end of my salami and the comfort of the Guthega car park.
The rest as they say is history to be repeated as many times as we can manage…
Afterword: This site was in urgent need of review since the larger versions of the images were lost after too many migrations from different computers. So I dug them out from my hardcopies, renewed them with larger sizes and added some extra shots to bring the memories back alive. Hindsight it is beautiful thing and this was one of the top three hardest trips to Blue Lake we have had together across an ocean of years. What made it so special was that we voluntarily opted to go "heavy," for extra training. This meant we brought an extra sled between two people and a heat-shaped barrel specifically designed for Jason who needed to train for his upcoming Mt.Denali expedition. We are lucky to still have him amongst us, but that is another story. It turned out that the barrel despite its straightened bottom continuously rolled downhill contorting the rope and making the approach to Blue Lake, hellishly slow. The sled was not much better and also toppled over at the relentless incline to the lake. For this reason the approach time to the lake doubled and we worked much harder then is necessary. Even today some eight years later the memory of this trip is still strong and we were lucky that the weather was perfect and at the time we did not know that much worse was to come. Out of this group only two regulars are left Jason and Roman with Mark and Leo still close by, but I hope Jasmin and Will are doing well until we meet again.
See the Resource
page for 2006 and 2007 financial date.
Download all the image HERE.
