Ice Climbing in the Sierra Nevada
Darren Miao and I decided to go ice climbing with an outfit called Sierra Mountain Guides. I have a fair bit of experience on ice and rock in the mountains, but I’d never tried technical ice climbing – the steepest I’ve climbed before would have been around 50-60 degrees.
Our destination was a one horse town called Lee Vining, which is out the back of Yosemite NP near the border with Nevada. To get there we drove over the mountain passes through one of the worst snow storms of the year and it took us about 8 hours to get there – urgh. Lucky we rented an all wheel drive!
We had two amazing days climbing pitches of around 30m on ice of varying difficulties. The ice and the weather were both perfect for climbing. Our guide, Doug, turned out to be a great instructor and he definitely taught me some new techniques and some good anchoring tips for ice and mixed ice/rock. I’ll definitely go again!
