BAKER CITY, Ore. – Whit Hartz, Mark Hauter and John Powell climb waterfalls without getting wet.
Well, sometimes they sweat.
But you’d probably perspire, too, if you did what they do.
Imagine climbing a hundred-foot-high cliff coated in ice. And that you remain attached to the ice by, at most, four slivers of metal (but occasionally only one), none much wider than the tip of a flat-bladed screwdriver.
Hartz and Hauter, both from La Grande, Ore., and Powell, who lives in Baker City, start climbing when the water stops falling.
The trio ascends only after frigid temperatures have turned a stream of water stationary and – they hope – stable.
But they don’t mind waiting on the weather, in part because they never have to wait on other groups of climbers.
Hartz, Hauter and Powell estimate that fewer than a dozen people, themselves included, regularly climb ice in Northeastern Oregon.
“I’ve never seen another climber in this area that I didn’t know,” Hauter said.
Exclusivity aside, Hartz said, ice climbing poses physical and mental challenges that distinguish it from more familiar gravity-defying pursuits such as scaling rock cliffs at Smith Rock in Central Oregon, or summiting Mount Hood or Cascade volcanoes.
“Unlike rock, which is pretty consistent, ice is always changing, sometimes by the hour,” said Hartz, who’s also a conventional rock and mountain climber.
Looking for cliffs
Hauter, 42, said he took up the sport in Northeastern Oregon in 1982. He introduced Hartz, 32, to ice climbing about four years ago.
Hauter said he had to teach himself to climb, because the roster of local ice climbers was even shorter in the early 1980s than it is today.
Hauter said Dave Coughlin, a Baker City attorney and triathlete, was one of the few ice climbers in Northeastern Oregon at the time.
“I just decided that I wanted to do it, so I did it,” Hauter said.
He said he first felt the lure of steep ice while he skiing in the backcountry.
“One thing led to another, and pretty soon I wanted to climb those steep faces,” Hauter said.
He said he searched for suitable routes during his ski trips. And he perused topographical maps, which show the steepness of slopes, “looking for cliffs.”
He found plenty.
And almost a quarter century later, he’s still looking.
“The adventure – that’s a big part of it,” Hauter said. “The challenge. And just the beauty. It takes you to some pretty wild places that you couldn’t get to any other way.”
Powell, 51, who said he has been climbing mountains “for most of my life,” first scaled sheer ice back in the 1970s in the Columbia River Gorge.
Powell refers to frozen cliffs as “icicles” – an amusingly diminutive term, as many of the routes that he, Hauter and Hartz climb actually extend for hundreds of feet.
“It is,” Hartz said with the nonchalance of an athlete accustomed to putting himself in perilous positions, “an adrenaline rush.”
Sharp skills needed
It also has a unique set of dangers.
Taking even a brief tumble while climbing an ice cliff can be akin to blindly thrusting your hand into your kitchen’s knife drawer.
In each hand, ice climbers clutch a tool called an ice pick, which looks like what it sounds like. Onto each boot, they cinch a set of crampons with 10 or 12 metal spikes.
These honed metal points anchor a climber to the ice, which is good, but they can also slice or skewer a falling climber flailing at the end of a safety rope.
“You’re pretty much surrounded by sharp, poky things,” Hartz said with a laugh.
A wayward ice pick or crampon might sever a climber’s rope – a particularly unpleasant event if the severed rope is the only one you happen to be attached to. Ice climbers sometimes tie into two ropes, Hartz said.
The skills a climber needs to reach the top are similar whether he’s clinging to rock or ice, Hartz said.
Ice climbers reach up the cliff, first with one pick, then with the other, and swing the tool, hammer-like, to drive the tip into the ice.
Once the climber is confident that the tip has a solid bite, Hartz said, he or she pulls up and then kicks each boot into the ice.
Each set of crampons has a pair of points that jut from the toe.
Generally a climber strives to maintain at least three solid holds at a time – both picks and one boot, or both boots and one pick.
It’s possible and sometimes necessary to hang from the ice by a single pick, Hartz said.
In essence, then, each climb consists of a series of one-armed pull-ups. Some climbs are several hundred feet high, which explains why Hartz’s biceps bulge more prominently than most people’s.
“Climbing makes your forearms and your calves burn,” he said.
And it’s not just the climbing that’s hard.
“This year was exceptional for ice, but none of it’s easy to get to,” Powell said.
This year also was exceptional for snow, which means those pre-climb journeys, known as approaches in the parlance of climbers, have been long and arduous, Hartz said.
“Sometimes it’s a half-day endeavor to get there,” he said.
The quality of the climbs, though, tends to offset the exertion, he said.
Powell recommends, as do Hartz and Hauter, that people interested in ice climbing get acquainted with an experienced climber.
Just remember to pack plenty of clothes.
Sure, you might sweat. But when a frigid mountain gale kicks up, you’ll appreciate a couple extra garments.
“It can,” Hartz said, his face forming a sort of half smile, half grimace, “get pretty miserably cold.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
