Ice Climbing in Valdez
As I mentioned, I went ice climbing in Valdez last week. On the first day there was nothing doing – even in town we had wind gusts of over 100 km/h (60 mph). So I didn't even bother driving out to the canyons, where the wind was surely whipping through twice as fast. But I had to do something. (At those wind speeds, a tent isn't exactly a place to relax either :-).
So I drove to the glacier lake right at the edge of town. In winter the lake is frozen, of course, and the icebergs that float around in summer turn into perfect "ice-bouldering icebergs".
On the way across the lake to the icebergs, I sometimes had to crouch down low, crampons and all, so the gusts wouldn't blow me away.
But I actually managed to find a few (almost) wind-sheltered ice caves in the icebergs. And after about an hour, two other crazy people suddenly showed up with the same idea as me: iceberg bouldering!
On the second day......