the adventures of mr. earl and ms. andersen and mr. and mrs. shaeffer

it was such a pleasant surprise to find out that my friends adam and tessa shaeffer had also joined the utah climbing club a few days ago! the club was having their ice climbing event up maple canyon on saturday so we all rented and gathered our gear and woke up at the butt crack of dawn (a.k.a. 5am) to make it down to the canyon by 8am. andy and i were pretty beat seeing as he had spent all day friday doing some back country touring and we all know i spent an exhausted day skiing at deer valley, pooped from my work out the day before, so needless to say, our bodies were a bit worked already.

none of us have ever ice climbed before so we were all blazing a new frontier together. i've always driven up provo canyon in the winter time and seen those "crazy fools" climbing the giant icicle that bridal veil falls had become. i thought to myself on many an occasion, about how insane that was to get out in the dead of winter time and climb frozen water! i had NEVER considered it that one day i might actually be doing the same thing! so, when it came time that i was actually strapping on my crampons and picking up those ice picks, i didn't know what to think. i hadn't really even taken the time to think about it for myself and then there we all were, hacking up that ice like it was nothing! even andy had never been ice climbing, and now i think we've created a monster with yet another hobby he's adding to his list!

the only words andy had to describe his first ice climb when he got down was "BAD ASS!" (sorry for the language) :) we all felt so cool with all the spikes we had on our feet and spikes in our hands, we couldn't help feeling "BAD ASS."

it was difficult here and there, and at times we all struggled with getting the axe into the ice, but once we got our own rhythms, the best feeling in the world was when you struck that ice with your axe and felt it sink with a resounding thud and knew with a surety that it was not going to budge... there was something sooooo satisfying about that! and at first it was so hard to trust the crampons. it was such a foreign feeling to see that you only have two little spikes sticking in the ice, and they don't even look like they're really in that far, and yet, you had to trust it and put ALL of your weight on those little shiny spikes. low and behold, it held. you definitely had to adjust your frame of mind and put a lot of trust in your tools and crampons. it was a rush to say the least...

"BAD ASS!"

tessa and i were lookin' super smokin' hot from waking up at 5am!

man, it is so cool to have these places to run off to and spend the day creating adventures for ourselves. we are a blessed people! this is only the beginning of many adventures to come...