Super Angie....ice ice baby and via Las Vegas

This weekend, we had quite the adventure. We traveled through Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada.

First, Rick and I went to Ouray, Colorado while our babysitter Anne stayed here with the kids. We enjoyed our stay and loved sitting in the hot tub at the hotel. We got up early Saturday morning, chatted with our friends Nate, John and Alisha at breakfast and then we set off for a wonderful day of climbing.

We scouted our route in the Scottish Gully and thought everything looked great. Rick set up an anchor and I lowered from the top. As I was being lowered, I got our first glance at the route we had chosen and should have just climbed out. The ice was horrible. Seriously, it was the worst ice I had seen. But I continued to have Rick lower me down to the bottom of the route. While be lowered, I crashed into a cave, almost hit the rock and took out quite a bit of ice. There was ice showering down all around me. Suddenly I was having thoughts of bad ice climbing accidents I had heard of--people being killed by ice falling on them. Surely this couldn't happen to me, I had always thought, since i only climbed in safe places, where the ice was very very good. And besides, I was on top rope. Well, with all this ice falling around me, I realized, ice accidents can happen anywhere...even in Ouray!

After I got down to the bottom (well, not really the bottom--It was on a very steep slope and I was leaning against two trees. one wrong move and I'd slide down into the creek) Rick came down and promptly mis handled his gloves and down to the bottom they tumbled. Bad signs were happening everywhere and we should have just walked out right then and there.

As Rick was coming down from the top, ice was breaking off and flying and hitting me in the face. Scenes of videos on Youtube of people getting smacked around ice climbing swirled in my brain. I said a prayer. I said another prayer. I was pretty much praying non-stop.

We decided this all pretty much sucked and we would hurry and just climb out. He took my pack (thankfully he had left his pack at the top of the route by the anchor). The bottom part of our route was easy peasy lemon squeezy...water ice 2. Not a big deal at all, although the ice sucked and everytime you set a crampon point in or sunk in your tool, ice would go flying--always hitting me! He made his way up the easy part and then started on the crappy Water Ice 5. It was overhanging and just totally crap ice. He did it skillfully and just looked awesome. It was especially cool considering that he had my 30 lb pack on his back. He got to the top and was ready for me to start climbing.

The ice was horrible. I fell on a water ice 2!!!! I should have taken that as yet another sign of bad things to come and just walked out. But nope, I knew I could climb this beast of a route, and so I proceeded. I got the the vertical section and did some awesome high steps. I even did a side pull. All those times I spent dry tooling this fall paid off. I was pullin some great moves....until, I noticed my rope was stuck on the top of the ice over on the left. Problem, I was climbing way on the right side of the climb. There was no way I could venture over to the left side--thats where I had falled coming down. Thats where the cave was, the broken ice I had crashed into. It was extra thin and horrible over there. My rope was stuck.

Rick was belaying from up on top, so he couldn't see me. So, every 20 seconds or so, he would gently pull on the rope to see if he needed to take up more slack. I called for him to stop pulling because this was just making my rope situation worse. I had enough slack I could continue to climb up the right side, but if I came off, I would pendulum over to the left and bad bad things would surely happen. I climbed. I prayed. I climbed some more. I had some good foot holds. I placed my tool. Suddenly it zippered out and that was the end of that.

I flew over to the left side. I smashed through the hanging curtain of ice. I could see the rock in the cave coming closer and closer. CRAP! I really don't want to break an ankle or something smashing into that cave wall. Phew! I don't swing far enough to hit it. Phew!

Problem is...when you have that momentum swinging you, you don't just swing into the curtain of ice and cave, but you have to swing back as well. So, back out I flew. Swinging into more ice, falling, swinging, bruising. SCREAMING. Yes, I was screaming. I was screaming so hard that climbers around the corner started calling my way asking if I was okay.

I was crying, screaming. Telling Rick I was done. I needed to be lowered. I was totally freaked out. I grabed what was left of the thin crappy curtain and clung for dear life. My feet were hanging in space...there was no ice around for me to grab or point my crampons on. I used my tools to steady myself on the curtain. It sucked.

Rick had to switch things out so he could lower me (I don't know all the technical things he had to do). It took a few minutes. I was just hanging. Crying and hanging.

I left go of the ice curtain for a second, which happened to the same second Rick dropped me 3 feet. MORE SCREAMING. MORE CRYING. More voices calling to see if I was okay.

Finally Rick lowered me to the creek. I untied and walked out. I was shakey. I vowed to never ice climb again. In fact, I would only ever climb inside again. In the safety of a gym. Yes, thats where I belong!

I found Rick waiting for me at the top. We sat, hugged and ate. Then we packed up and walked around. By now it was super busy and all the "good" ice was taken. We watched our friends climb in the School Room section of the park. Looked good. I saw the kid's wall. Now, we should have just checked our egos at the park gate and climbed the dang kids wall. The ice was great. The routes were short. You start at the bottom like traditional climbing, so you already know how the route looks--no surprises. Its easy to walk up the back and set up a top rope. We should have just climbed there. But nope...we walked to the end of the park and found a bunch of good looking routes that were empty. It was totally empty back there. Nice! So, Rick set up an anchor and I was supposed to just be lowered down 10 feet to climb. Just to test it. Just to get me back on that dang ice climbing horse again.

But I hate being lowered outside. I hate rapping down. It scares me something awful. But admidst the tears, I started backwards towards the side of the cliff. I put my tools into the strange looking ice on the top and then watched as the ice slid off the cliff. HOLY CRAP! I can't climb another route with falling ice. I was done.

We packed up and head out of town as fast as we could.

It was humiliating.

Rick had climbed one route and did well. His hands held up, but the bad part of that route is actually only about 10-15 feet long. Not a big deal. But he did it and he did it with a pack on. COOL!.

But me...Heck, I had slipped on WI 2 and crashed and banged on the 5 section. I had to walk out for goodness sake. I was so humiliated. I was ashamed.

Rick and I stopped for dinner in Grand Junction and just enjoyed being together. Thanks sweetie!

The next morning I did sharing time and everything worked out fine. Then we took off to Vegas. We were going to visit Rick's mom and just have some fun as a family. We love going to Vegas. We love the animal shows, the resturatns and going to China Town. There are just so many fun things to do down there with the kids.

We stayed at the Excalibur of cours. We love seeing the lions at MGM akids played pretend that they were kings and knights. We ate at Rainforest Cafe--our favorite! And we enjoyed the lions. We also took the train to Mandalay Bay and the kids enjoyed that. The next morning we met Joyce and enjoye a nice buffet breakfast at South Point. The kids were excited to have regular western style breakfast mixed with Chinese food and ice cream.

It was a very quick trip, but nice too. But on the way home, I was picking at my sparkle toes and ended up splitting my nail in half. It was bleeding and everything. DANG IT! We had plans to hike this week and do lots of climbing at the gym. Darn it! Then once home, and in bed, the sheet snagged it and torn the whole nail off.

I'm now limping!

What a weekend.

--Super Angie