Originally we wanted to drytool. On the other side of the valley we spotted some last icicles of the season. It turned out to be a pretty wild adventure.

Ice was melting. Water was flowing everywhere. First pitch was interesting. We couldn’t start in the middle of the ice because of the stream flowing already under it. I went diagonally through some muddy rock, soft grass and got to somewhat soft ice. Ice screws didn’t really stick in the ice but I placed them to at least have something in case the whole thing cracks.

We escaped diagonally avoiding weak soft ice in the second pitch. It was to soft to climb. In the meantime, 10 minutes from us, on the left side, an avalanche went down.

Special thanks to Ben Russell for awesome pictures.