Ninilchik Bluff Ice

This last weekend we took a trip down to Ninilchik to see if the Ice was in for climbing on the bluffs. The conditions were rather dismal, with this winter being so lackluster as it is. The Ice is not very great and overall not the safest thing to be climbing, but as Nic has been chomping at the bit to climb all winter long he braved the conditions to try what looked to be the most solid route on the bluff at the moment. Climbing aside we had a wonderful day out on the beach, the girls had fun playing around, and we tested out our new method of keeping Merek happy by pushing him all the way there in the jogger, bundled up in his snow gear and blankets he did wonderfully! He even had a nice little nap! 

 

All geared up and ready to go!

Heading up the approach, under the snow is all ice

Honestly the pictures make this look small! but it seems much bigger when your standing under it and are 30feet up from the beach.

Lexi was taking pictures and she got some super cool shots we all really liked. This is our rope with some random ice chunks

Placed a screw at the bottom to catch me incase the Ice gave out, it was really weird consistency, the constant freeze and thaw this winter has taken its toll

There was about 2 inches of crap ice over the top of all the "good" ice and even better ice was iffy, this winter has got to be the worst ever for climbing on the Kenai

I originally wanted to take the line to the left but it was total crap, all melted and rotten, with lots of water running down it, to our right about 50 feet there was actually a waterfall still fully falling down the bluff with no freeze!

next are a couple pics of the lackluster amount of ice on this normally solid section of bluff

So we went over to a little protected gully that Nat has wanted to climb thinking maybe less sun could get in there

Plans to just solo this little section didn't really pan out as again the warm weather has created such a weird freeze, the top layer is just complete crap and then the ice underneath was almost slushy, not an ideal situation



We both looked at it and came to the same conclusion, Not worth taking a slide down the gully for!