Overtime!

After a very slow start, winter just didn't seem to want to quit this year. I thought I was done climbing ice after leaving Russia, but cold nights and daytime cloud cover were enough to push the end of ice season in Southern Ontario to nearly the end of March!

Bec seconding "Space Jam".

This past weekend we made the 4+ hour drive north to get our last ice fix for the season. Warm days and warm nights the next week look like they are going to put a quick end to any difficult ice climbing this year. The lower angle north facing flows should last well into April
.

Bec seconding "Fishing For Hooks"

 We had a chance on Saturday to repeat a new route that went up this winter as well as revisit a couple of my older routes at McCauley Lake. I was pretty happy to repeat Forked Tongue Devil. Usually there is an inner dagger that makes the route a bit easier as you can climb off the rock onto the ice sooner. The rock holds seem to run out near the top of the cliff and I wasn't sure if would even be possible to climb. After searching around I was able to find a couple of small, marginal holds that allowed passage high enough to just barely swing over to the ice.

"Forked Tongue Devil"

 On Sunday we went to Diamond Lake. I was hoping to equip and climb a moderate new route that I had toproped earlier in the season, but the ice on it has long since fallen down. The sun there is very strong and was quickly rotting out the remaining ice on the cliff. Despite the less than ideal conditions we were able to still get in a pretty good day. I found another line to try which turned out to be really hard. The higher you get the harder the moves seemed to be with the exception of one move in the middle that I wasn't even able to do, yet. Perhaps its best to finish the season with unfinished business for next year.

"Dark Angel"