Francovich: Putting the new year on ice

There is some symmetry in ringing in a new year climbing ice, a fleeting substance, one that – like a year – disappears with regularity.

And so I welcomed 2023 trudging through the snow in Montana’s Hyalite Canyon in search of frozen water.

I wasn’t alone.

Hyalite Canyon is a Montana gem and the most visited recreation site in the state. In the summer, it’s a destination for hikers and campers. In the winter, skiers and climbers. This past weekend was no different with plenty of cars in the lot when we arrived and climbers scattered throughout the valley, the clink of axes and crampons biting into the ice audible in quiet moments.

A note: Climbers ascend ice by kicking their crampons (steel spikes attached to boots) into the ice, stepping up while pulling upward on their ice picks (an ax-shaped device with a sharp steel point attached to a handle).

Like nearly all outdoor activities, particularly winter ones, this isn’t how it used to be. Ice climbing grew out of mountaineering, an “admirably simple sport: One found oneself a mountain, the bigger the better, and tried to climb to its top,” as author Jon Krakauer described the endeavor in his 1990 book “Eiger Dreams.” Climbing up ice, or for that matter rock, was a means to and end.

“By and by, however, all the highest summits were reached, and alpinists who wanted to make a mark for themselves were forced to turn to increasingly difficult faces and ridges on peaks that had already been climbed,” Krakauer wrote. “Eventually, the quest for ever greater challenges and virgin vertical ground evolved to the point where, for a good many climbers, reaching a geographically significant summit ceased to be of any interest whatsoever; so long as the climbing was hard enough and steep enough to make adrenaline flow in abundance; it was unimportant whether the object being climbed was a high Himalayan peak or an English Rock quarry.”

Thus was born rock climbing and ice climbing.

Chris Kopczynski, a Spokane alpinist with notable first ascents all over the world, started ice climbing in the 1960s, during the infancy of the sport. He remembers hearing rumors of crazy Canadians climbing big floes of ice. In particular, he followed the exploits of Bugs McKeith, a pioneer of the sport.

“I heard about McKeith doing these crazy things,” Kopczynski said. “Then he went and died.”

While McKeith didn’t die ice climbing, he fell through a cornice, an undeniably risky and intense activity, one dominated by audacious men (mainly), willing to test the limits of technology, psychology and physicality. As one article described the early climbing scene, “It was one of hard living and very hard climbing. It was a working man’s ethic and most of the leading climbers of the era were tradesmen: iron workers, stone masons, gardeners, carpenters and plumbers.”

That intensity and willingness to risk it all remains an ethos in parts of the climbing community. But as evidenced by my weekend in Hyalite, ice climbing has never been more accessible and safer.

Amidst all the other climbers in Montana ringing in the New Year was a healthy contingent from Spokane – including a group from the Spokane Mountaineers taking the annual ice seminar (see sidebar).

Angela Giampietri was one of those students. Giampietri loved the experience, even though it was something she’d never imagined herself doing, particularly in her 40s. In fact, she found ice climbing easier than rock climbing.

Like the early pioneers, her gateway drug was alpinism.

“Being a mountaineer, I feel like I need to at least familiarize myself with every method of getting up and down a mountain,” she said.

The reason for this change comes down to access, said Phil Bridgers, director of the Bozeman Ice Festival and the former events coordinator for Spokane-based Mountain Gear.

“The access to it is becoming easier, so more people are doing it,” he said.

Access means many different things. Guidebooks, internet forums and a growing network of avalanche forecasting centers all make ice climbing more accessible and safer .

Advances in gear, however, have reduced much of the objective suffering required to climb ice.

“Clothing and footwear. You don’t need to be miserable out there,” Bridgers said. “If you’re cold, it’s probably because you didn’t quite wear what you should have.”

Unless, of course, it’s minus 30 degrees.

The 2022 Bozeman Ice Fest was Bridgers’ second as director and 402 people attended the event. Numerous clinics and talks introduced climbers to the sport. Those clinics ranged from technical advice from professional climbers, how to swing your ice tool correctly, for instance, from mental health and climbing partnership advice from a licensed counselor.

The inclusion of a seminar on partner dynamics and mental health seems particularly appropriate to me.

In my experience, climbing ice is a more meditative discipline than rock climbing. Short days and cold nights, combined with the ever-changing medium, turn the mind toward mortality.

It’s a theme often wrestled with – intellectually and physically – by the early pioneers of ice climbing.

And so, as more people become ice climbers, encouraged by easier and safer access, I hope to remember the roots of this evanescent activity even as we move toward the new.