Near Death Adventuring

Through out winter climbers that are subjected to cold harsh conditions and constantly snow covered rocks. It makes to sort of a climbing limbo in between the months of February through around the end of April where there will be some days beautiful enough to go out and shred, but then only to be faced with snow storms and high winds the next day and following week. So as you can see there are some problems with climbing in Idaho Falls and we are always on the lookout for open opportunities to get out of the gym and out to the world of the outdoors.

Yesterday was one of those opportunities. Waking up at 9:30 am I was welcomed to the day by rays of sunlight and birds chirping. Although the weather reports on several sites (thanks weather underground.. and weather channel..) indicated snow fall and heavy fog they actually should have said it was sunny, no clouds, and very warm! Grabbing the bull by the horns I called up Dyno Dan and we headed out to Blackfoot Canyon. As we arrived the the top of the crag we noticed that although it was sunny it still was a little cold so we bundled up grabbed the crash pad and gear and headed down into the canyon where the winding blackfoot river runs through. The further we made our way down the warmer it was getting because of the barricading canyon walls that were protecting us from all the elements except the most important, sunlight. We set up base camp and started our session of climbing. Me and Dan both were working on one of the best boulder problems in the canyon, located just down the river by a Fish and Game bridge made of a large wire line thats hung across the river. After I had sent the problem it was still giving Dan some trouble (especially after a crucial foot hold broke..) so we stayed and worked and worked and worked it until Dan respectfully stopped barraging the wall with relentless send attempts. When we were packing up about to leave Dan suggested that we cross the Fish and Game wire line bridge, us naturally being the "MANLY MEN" we are decided to harness up get some carabiners and sashes and totally cross that river Bear Grylls style! Which we did! Which was Dope! But as we were crossing we realized how difficult it was to pull our body weight up the last end of the line and decided that crossing the river back over the bridge would be incredibly hard and tiresome. After that decision we hiked up the river to an ice bridge that seemed like we could have crossed it, but we were definitely wrong, there was a gap in the ice about 4 ft. wide with a very heavy flow of water through that gap... we were stuck. We deliberated over our options and came to our final one, we would cross the 50 feet of frozen river on foot. (you can see where we crossed in the photo below)

In the middle of winter in February on a snowy river bank we stripped down to our bare feet (so our pants wouldn't get wet and cause hypothermia) and we slowly entered the freezing water. Dan got in first and got out last, I was going to spend as little time in that water as possible, but no matter how long we spent in there it didn't change the fact that the water was FREEZING and our feet were extremely cold! We got out of the river unscathed and shivering until we could dry ourselves off and put our dry pants back on... except Dan kept his off because they were wet from a minor slip in the river. Hiking up and out of the canyon half wet, one of us only in his undies we both felt a sense of humility but more so we felt an overwhelming sense of valor, bravery, and manliness. So next time your facing your river of ice remember:

"The secret to happiness is freedom, the secret of freedom is Courage."

Thucydides