Adirondaks Mountaineering
The Empress, Chapel Pond Slabs, N.E. Ice grade II
26 February 1998
Adirondak Mountains, New York State
Report by Darren DeRidder
Party: Mike G., Jean B., Darren DeRidder
The last week of February was reading week at the University. My hope was
to go ice climbing during the break, and Mike Gumpert, a classmate of mine,
was thinking of going to the Adirondacks. He mentioned this to me and I let
him know in no uncertain terms that I wanted to go. Having only been technical
ice climbing once before, I knew I was asking a favour, but I was dying to
get outside and climb after training on plastic for months.
It sort of came together at the last minute and with persistent phone calls to Gump I wheedled my way into the expedition. The plan was to drive down to the Adirondaks early Wednesday morning, climb a few ice routes and then camp out Wednesday night. Thursday we would climb some other routes, camp again and return to Ottawa Friday morning. One the agenda was Choinard's gulley, which is NEI grade III. NEI stands for New England Ice and is the grading system they use for ice around here. I don't quite know the intricacies of this system yet.
On Tuesday night the plans were laid and I took a trip downtown to borrow some snowshoes off a guy in the Outdoors Club. Then it was time to pack up my gear, which included my little Moss tent and my 50M rope. The pack weighed half a ton and I thought I would be in trouble if we had to climb anything with our packs on. I finally got to bed about 4:30 and got a call from Gump at 6:00. They came by at 7:00 to pick me up, and from there we drove to the 'dacks, stopping at the Indian reserve stateside where Jean bought pickled eggs and green tea for breakfast. I was impressed with his flair for exotic cuisine but stuck with an apple danish myself.
We got to Chapel Pond just before mid-day and had a look at the possibilities. They were located on the other side of the lake from us. On the left were the Chapel Pond Slabs which offer good moderate grade rock climbing in the summer and ice climbing in the winter. There had been some really heavy snowfall so in addition to the ice there was a lot of powder. We decided to climb the slabs first via a route called the Empress, an NEI grade II. After that we planned to try a couple others.
For the climb we took really light day packs with minimal gear inside. We all had fleece and goretex either on us or in our packs, and in addition to my rope I brought my 35mm camera, water, and a bag of gorp. It was snowing and blowing and the visibility wasn't super; also the heavy snow build-up combined with warm temperatures made me very uneasy about the stability of the snow slope at the base of the climb.
The first pitch was basically buried under waist-deep powder at an angle of about 45 degrees. It was pretty steep, tough going through the snow. Jean broke the trail and we followed. It was odd to be climbing up such a steep slope in such deep snow and I was very relieved when we got to the top of the pitch. Above us was now mostly ice so the danger of getting caught in an avalanche was lower. We roped up and set up a belay at some trees. Jean led off up the ice, which was between 45 and 50 degrees in my estimation. The middle section of the pitch was snow again. Gump and I watched Jean move over the snow and then out of our line of vision further up. Pretty soon Jean had the next belay set and I decided to take the middle. This was the best place for me to be since I judged myself to be the weakest member of the team. I moved out and motored up the snow pretty fast, using my classic alpine ax and my short ice hammer in cane position. Above the snow there was a bit more ice. I was a bit concerned that my old-fashined ice tools wouldn't be up to par on the ice but in fact the 70cm axe was great on this low angle stuff. In fact, before the advent of high-tech ice climbing tools, I bet everybody climbed his route with just a single alpine axe.
Jean was belaying at a tree and I moved up around him, stamped out a platform in the snow, made a seat for myself and settled in. As I climbed I had trailed my rope: Gump was on the other end of it. Jean had put in two ice screws for pro and as I passed them I unclipped the rope I was on and reclipped my rope so that Gump would stay on route and not pendulum if he slipped. The wind was blowing pretty good and the snow was stinging our eyes and faces. Because it wasn't too cold, we were pretty wet on the outside. Damp mits and cold hands were a problem. Jean seemed to be getting pretty cold. In fact we were all chilled a bit. When Gump arrived he took the gear and led through. The pitch was steeper and it looked quite impressive as he moved up and out of sight. Taking photos was troublesome with the wet snow blowing all over but I tried to get a couple of shots anyway.
I followed Gump and went more
slowly than I had on the previous pitch. I arrived at the belay feeling a
lot warmer. The belay was two screws and a Specter in a really solid
vertical ice wall.
There was some steep snow at the base of this and I trampled out a narrow
stance and anchored myself with a clove hitch. Gump was in the best
position to belay so he brought up Jean, who brought along the two screws
that had been placed as pro. He also took one of the screws out from the
belay station and then led through for the last pitch.
We were talking about going to a restaurant to warm up after this climb and maybe staying at a motel instead of camping. Jean's fleece was damp and he would have trouble keeping warm outside. The first part of the last pitch was an awkward grunt up some very steep loose snow that had accumulated on the left side of the vertical ice wall. It was perhaps 60 degrees or steeper. I wondered why it didn't all just slide off. It wasn't very stable to climb on. Once above the ice wall the angle went back to about 45 or 50 degrees.
Jean moved up and placed two screws again. The second one went halfway in
so he
tied it off and moved up to a tree belay just below the top of the route. He had
gone a full 60 meters and with my rope being only 50m, Gump would have to start
climbing before I reached the belay. There was a bit of tricky ground on the
last pitch. First there was some waist-deep snow over rock which was a real
slog to break through. Then there was very thin ice over smooth rock at a 45
degree angle. It wasn't possible to get pick placements, so balancing across on
crampons was the only thing to do. Jean had done a good lead.
Pretty soon we were all at the last belay and Jean set off to find the descent gulley, still on belay. He moved near the top of the descent gulley and then brought the two of us up on a hip belay. At that point we took off the ropes and headed to the top of the gulley. When I arrived there I saw Jean had moved from some ice-covered rock into the chute of the gulley. He'd taken a jump and landed right in the middle of the gulley. It was steep and choked with really deep soft snow. I thought it was a little dodgy to take a flying leap into the chute, since none of us knew how stable the snow was. It looked steep enough that it might have avalanched and given us all a wild ride to the bottom. There were trees all along the way from this point down, so I suggested a rappel.
It was, however, already almost 5:30 and we figured we had about 15 minutes of daylight left. Jean was happy to glissade down the gulley so we coiled the ropes. Mike had mine and although I offered to take it he tied it on himself. Jean went first and slid down the gulley, under a log, past some trees to a spot about 50 meters down where it wasn't as steep. The soft snow slowed him down a fair bit, but he had cleared a trench on the way down. I slotted myself in this and started out using my axe as a brake. Pretty soon I was totally out of control and moving a lot faster than I wanted too. I rolled over onto my my axe to self-arrest but in the soft snow the pick didn't grab anything. Eventually it was just the soft snow building up between my legs that slowed me down... dragging my axe had at least kept me in a straight line. I turned around and found one leg totally stuck in the snow. I used my axe to dig it out and then kept sliding down. I was trying to hurry because I knew Gump was right behind me and I didn't want to get crampons in my back. As I was sliding down I heard the sound of Mike coming down behind me and suddenly got shoved forward by a snowslide. It swept me forward and started to curl up over my shoulders but I backstroked like crazy to stay on it. When the snow curled up over my sides I started to go under and felt myself getting trapped in it. Snow covered my face. My mind was working really fast and I was concentrating pretty hard on keeping myself alive at this point, so I rolled forward with the flow of the snowslide and managed to get my head up out of the snow and grab a tree branch as I moved by. I hung onto this just long enough for the main part of the snow to move past and then I slid down another 5 meters. Jean was off to the side and had seen me rolling out of the snow but didn't realize I had almost gone under.
At this point we turned around and waited for Gump to come down the chute. Jean cleared a path, so when I came down it was fast. Too fast. After I came down, it was a regular luge run to hell. I expected Gump to come barrelling down it like greased lightening but he didn't show up. I guessed he was downclimbing it. He still didn't show up so Jean and I went up a little higher to see what was happening. Jean shouted up to him and I then called up to Jean to find out the situation. Apparently Gump was rappelling down. A couple minutes later the word came down that his ankle was feeling funny. Jean didn't seem worried so I figured it was nothing more than a little twist.
Mike used my rope to make two rappels down to us. While he was rapping Jean went down to check the terrain below. I went along. I was a little worried that the three of us might get strung out and separated. Jean and I had a look at what lay behind a line of fir trees. It was hard to see but it looked pretty steep. We would have to rappel that as well. we went back up. Gump had lowered himself to our previous level and wasn't to thrilled about us leaving him. We told him we'd just been down about 20 meters for a looksee and explained that we would need to rappel the rest of the descent.
When Gump showed up it was clear that he wasn't going to be walking anywhere. This is when I understood the seriousness of our situation. It was getting dark and we were still pretty high up above the road. The gulley was still quite steep and we would have to rappel the rest of the way down to flat ground. We talked about going over to the slabs on our left and using the rap stations there, but I said it would be troublesome to traverse over. If we kept rapping down our current line of descent we would reach the bottom sooner. The problem was our unfamiliarity with what lay below us. Jean thought there was likely a drop-off somewhere below us.
I pulled my rope and set up another 25M rappel for Mike, and the three of us got down to the line of fir trees below. On the other side of the trees it was definitely steeper.
Taking both ropes we prepared to do 50M rappels. I set it up around a tree and Jean went first. Up to this point, there had been tension and confusion about what we should do. Go for help? Dig in? Try to rap all the way down in the dark? Send one person down for the car? I was convinced that we should stay together. Once the rappel was set up we decided on a plan. Jean would go first the check out the terrain. Gump and I would follow as Jean guided us from below.
Sitting there with Gump I looked at him and said, "Mike! You're screwed!" That seemed to sum up the situation. We started laughing. Pretty soon Jean called up from below that there was indeed a dropoff. He went over it and a few minutes later he was off rappel. I asked Mike his preference and he apologetically claimed second position. This was fine with me although I was spooked to be the last one down. It was better for him to be in the middle. I wedged myself behind the tree which was our rap anchor and helped Mike get on rappel. I kept a hand on the line, sensing his progress as I sat there in the dark. When the line finally went slack and I heard a faint call up to me, I got myself on rappel.
It was like doing everything blindfolded. I took off my mits and was really glad the temperature wasn't too cold. We were all keeping reasonably warm. The low cloud cover was keeping the temps right around the freezing mark. After checking my rap set-up by feel I set off sliding down the slope. The angle was around 50 degrees and the snow was very soft and deep. If I tried to stand and walk, my legs would sink to the hip. Lying on my side and squirming down was the only way to do it.
Gump was doing an incredible job of getting himself down. We were now totally in the dark and the only indication we had of where we were was when a car would pass on the road below. I could see from the angle that we had a fair bit of steep ground to cover. After our first long rappel however, I felt much better. It was as dark and as cold as it was going to get, we were all together, Gump was doing OK, and we were making progress. We set up another long rappel and repeated the process.
This time we made it to level ground. It was dark and hard to see where we were in relation to the road. It was flat for about 50 meters and then there was a low rise. Was that the road, or was there another slope on the other side of the rise? Jean was going to leave us and get the car, but I cautioned that we may yet need to rappel. Fortunately, right at that moment, a car came by. We watched the glow from the headlights intensify as the vehicle got closer. We were looking very closely to see were the road was. Much to our relief it went zipping past us right at the edge of the low rise, only 50 meters away. We were pretty much home free, but we had to figure out a way to drag Gump out from here. Jean went to get the van. Meanwhile I coiled my rope and Gump tried to slide along towards the road. He wasn't making any worthwile progress so I tried to get him to stop wriggling around in the snow by pestering him with offers of gorp and making him fumble with the rope bag. Jean was coming back with snowshoes and a headlamp. We called him over and I got my big snowshoes on, took a double load of gear, went to the van, dropped it off and went back.
Gump did up his goretex real tight, laid down on his back and got a sling in each hand. Jean and I, with snowshoes on, pulled on the slings and dragged him along behind us. We staggered along to the edge of the road. Snowshoes came off and then the we got Gump loaded into the van. All the gear got thrown into the back in a big mess. It was about 9:30 so we'd taken almost five hours to get down.
Mike wanted to look at his ankle. We drove around a bit and eventually pulled up beside the road and got his boot off. In retrospect we should have left it on. I think Mike knew it was busted. Still he was talking about taking painkillers, getting drunk, staying at a hotel and letting me and Jean climb the following day. Getting to a hospital was the foremost thing on my mind. The consensus was that we would stop at Pizza Hut and then drive back to Ottawa and check in to the Ottawa General Hospital. It was 10:15 by the time we got to Pizza Hut and we were a ragged bunch when we came in, Jean and I supporting Gump on either side.
Mike told us what happened. When he saw how fast I shot down the gulley, he moved over to the side where there was still some soft snow. As he began to slide down in the soft snow, the snow mass started moving, taking him with it. This mass of snow is what hit me further down. We all still had our crampons on. His left foot went through the snow and the crampons bit into the ice underneath. In an instant his ankle was snapped sideways. He continued sliding and as he went under a log, he reached up with his axe and snagged it. After hanging there for a while he got himself anchored and then set up a rappel.
Jean ended up driving across the border while Mike and I dozed. Once across the border Mike switched to the back seat and I got a Doctor Pepper and got ready to take a shift at the wheel. But Jean and I started talking which helped him stay awake and so he carried on driving.
The x-rays
at the hospital showed a displaced fracture of the fibula, the small
bone in the ankle. It was nasty. There was also a multiple fracture of the tibia,
the large ankle bone. In fact it was a mess. It meant surgery and putting a plate
and some screws in the ankle to hold it all together. Because of the swelling
Mike couldn't have surgery the same day as we brought him in. It requires about
five days for the swelling to go down and in the meantime he is getting
painkillers.
At the hospital we told the doctors that we had been ice climbing. That seemed to explain the broken ankle to them with a single phrase. The fact is however that the accident did not occur while we were ice climbing. It happened after the climb was done, on the descent, as we were sliding down the gulley. It seems like a lot of accidents happen once the "hard part" is done. They occur on the easiest sections when caution is put aside. In any case we were put into a situation where we weren't as prepared as we wish we had been. We might have taken headlamps with us, for instance. We were very fortunate that it wasn't colder than it was: that's one thing in our favour. We were all able to set up and complete a rappel in the dark and cold in a tense situation. We kept out wits about us and kept in good humour as we proceeded. Thanks to Mike's bravery in getting himself most of the way down, the whole procedure was simplified. If we'd had to lower him it would have taken a lot more than five hours. This is the first climbing-related accident I have been involved in and I hope it is the last.
Darren DeRidder February 28, 1998