Ice Climbing: Scaling Frozen Cascades – The drive to my home town takes me past the Mt Iron embankment on one side of the road and the maze on the other, with the “Leaning Tower of Wanaka”. I ski the hill and as always scan the mountains for signs of life. For a moment, before the east face of the Black Peak disappears behind trees, I see what I consider life: ice. On this day, when the air is stunned by winter, it slides in bright white lines down the bare slopes. Even though they are 30 kilometers apart, I know these lines are frozen waterfalls. A mixture of fear and a desire to climb the petrified cataract seeps into the car for the rest of the journey.
My friend Dave Vass shares my feeling for the ice. After a gentlemen’s breakfast at a lakeside cafe, he and I board … Read the rest