Today TJ, Ben and I headed into the Valley of the Birds. We had hoped to climb a lot, but the ice conditions were general poor, or more than we had the gonads for. The road is in descent shape, much better than last week. We parked just pass GBU, but crossed the river on foot. The approach ice is very in, an easy cruise, but very brittle this morning with lots of dinner plating.
We climbed Albatross first, solid 3 grade in the middle section, just off vertical for about 20 metres. Very poor ice quality in the lower half of the first pitch, 6 inches of ice over powder snow, over basically verglas, for much of the first 25 ish metres above the first belay. Better ice above crux section, upper pitch not really worth the effort, but had better ice.
Next we headed to Yellow Bird. Approach pitch was crazy brittle, very thin near exit. We didn’t have the balls for the real climb of Yellow Bird. Very featured ice, lots of mini mushroom heads, lots of straws, lots of surface water spraying drips and drops, too early in the season for me on that stuff.
Felt beer calling, so we headed home. Great day even with the poor ice quality.
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