Alaskan Alpine Club
2005-06 Twin Towers Page 2.
6 November - November 29. Then the color evolution on Twin Towers Page 3, then Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8.
6 November. Added another 10 feet of pipe in each tower. 30 feet of pipe in each so far.
The towers are starting to offer actual climbing, albeit short, but worthy when the icicles break at your feet, leaving you hanging on your tools.
After years of using my high quality home made harness, despite the frayed webbing, I finally saved up enough money to buy one of those actual commercially made ones, a cool Misty Mountain Threadworks harness. Way comfortable, despite its drab color. There are still some folks who have not discovered colored webbing.
The towers are about 150 feet apart.
8 November. Ya fer good grief sakes. I perceived a plaintive call of the ice while I was not entirely too far from the towers, so I swung over that way on the way back to where I was going, and there was the south tower, the distant one in the photo, agonizing for help, with the upper half of the last section of pipe bent over horizontal. We had switched from 3/4 inch pipe the first year, to 1 inch pipe last year, then back to 3/4 in pipe this year. Well so I forgot that 3/4 inch pipe is not very structural. Each new section needs to be wired from the top area, to at least three points of ice. I had wired it only from the mid point of a ten foot section. Apparently the ice built up around the nozzle head, in a lop sided fashion, got heavy and bent the pipe over. So I had to drive home, get my climbing gear, drive back over the hill to the ice, solo the perilous face of ice for a full 15 feet up from the last level spot, and do my old Superman trick of bending pure steel pipe back straight while perched on the top of a piece of ice, of all things.
Perhaps you missed the longer political diatribe that was here for a few days, ragging the government, including the pitiable sops in the National Park Service No problem, write your own. If you lack material because you still think the benevolent government exists to help people rather than take their money to manifest the damaging idiocy of the sorts who fall victim to government jobs, just wait awhile. Power serves only itself, and no humans. You are just waiting for the belated incentive to figure out how much money (time/labor) the government took from you in overt and obscured taxation, and paperwork time demands (over 80% of your work), to pay itself and its foreign cronies lavishly, funding wars and other damaging boondoggles, and giving you back a scant fraction of what you could have used to benefit yourself and society, while government drones claim credit for the work of the people, who mostly remain thoroughly fooled. If you are not rolling on the floor, kicking, and pounding your fists, clutching your aching sides, gasping for breath, tears of howling laughing streaming from your eyes, at the mere thought of the US RepublicratDemocan dolts and their unquestioning minions, you are missing the only show that malicious lot of thugs knows how to stage.
Fortunately, despite the humans thrashing about, waving their arms, shouting disparaging descriptions of their benevolent government overlords, and generally carrying on, water is still freezing in Fairbanks Alaska at this very moment, if you are reading this in the winter.
11 November. Added 5 feet of pipe on the 10th.. 35 feet of pipe in each tower.
No doubt you have on occasion suggested the lack of full wattage in the cranial lights of those other guys in that other part of the country, and indicated the less thrilling nature of their lives, by referencing their enthusiasm for such adventures as watching paint dry. So just what sort of things shall we mention of these Alaskans, and the chaps who can be caught at their computer screens, watching water freeze? Do your friends know that this is what you do when you sit at the computer?
13
November. Added 10 feet of pipe. 45 feet of pipe in each tower.
However, the water froze in the south tower water line while we were adding new pipe. So it is not flowing. It has had difficulties since we started.
This presents a bit of a quandary. We have consulted the consultants, ourselves, and concluded that we may decide upon a course of action, maybe Wednesday. That should give us more time to consult on the dilemma. Who would have ever thought that the water line to an ice tower would freeze in the far frozen north?
Oh, the south tower ice is officially 41 feet high, just in case we decide to leave it there for lack of financial where-with-all to buy more plastic water line and insulation, and in case you were among those who were, ah, guessing its final height. If we run a bypass line up, it will be laid in a more direct path from the bottom to the top, so it will not have the freezing problem of the first mis-routed line, while the by-pass valve is open while we add more pipe.
18 November. No photos today. Snowy. Busy until dark. Much homdihooming, quizzical looking and fussing around, the conclusion of which is a new water line up the south tower, to replace the tube of ice. Water is again spraying at the top of the south tower. Replaced the ten foot section of pipe at the top of the south tower, with a 5 foot section to get a better base of ice around the new plastic line coming in from the side, at the top. Therefore, 40 feet of pipe in the south tower, and 45 feet in the north tower.
Added spotlights, shining on the towers from the parking area, so the towers at night are as impressive as in the day, and perhaps a bit more mysterious, especially with the odd shaped tracks through the snow in the trees, going up and into the icicle maze of the north tower. I have been to some of those places in AlaskaStories, and some not in there, but I aint never seen no tracks like these. Well, ice towers are new things, and they may attract things that have not been around since the ice towers made during the last ice age, when ice covered the land as far as the eye could see, before global warming destroyed the fragile wilderness ice environment, leaving modern humans barely surviving in the destroyed wastelands of Alaska with scant remnants of life-saving ice only in the winter where humans spray water into the air, or something like that. There are some permafrost tunnels in the immediate area of these towers, and some stories related to strange tracks found therein, told only in hushed voices.
There have also been some serious discussions of the name of the towers, and no few peanuts eaten while discussing that and other worldly matters of other worlds, while sitting back and looking up at the towers from the warm-up shack.
20
November. John Reeves the ice artist has named the ice towers,
the Twin Towers, in respect of 9/11.
Added 10 feet of pipe on the North Tower. 55 feet total.
Added 5 feet of pipe on the South Tower. 45 feet total.
We add the amount of pipe that can be supported by wire from the surrounding ice points which develop at different rates. The pipe will sometimes get top heavy with ice, and bend over, if not well supported. The alternative would be adding 3 feet each time.
First off, climbers try to find the hardest way to get to the top of things. Then, never content, they try to find the easiest way. So I figured the towers were short enough to throw a line over, without hassling with the crossbow trick. To quickly pull a rope over the top allows a convenient top rope belay rather than a more difficult lead climb, especially for that first section where your tools are well placed but your feet are flailing among breaking icicles. Lead climbing at below 0 degrees F is also a bit noticeable to gentlemen and gentlewoman ice climbers. So I tied a 550 cord to a nine ounce lead weight, and made a throwing stick, and figured this would be too easy. I anticipated success on the first throw. For an hour, while no one was there to watch and laugh hysterically, I made many attempts with the lead weight, a hardball, my throwing stick and a commercial ball throwing stick for dogs. I threw overhand, underhand, slaunchwise and whirled the weight around in a circle to throw it. I put the lead weight over the top of several trees, tangling the line in the branches, several times, including some behind me, but it never quite reached the top of the ice when it went in that direction. So when another climber showed up, we did a lead climb on each tower. A smaller weight might work, perhaps four ounces, and lighter line, perhaps 50 pound fishing line. Oh, you might notice that the tree top that was bent over below the North Tower, finally broke off under the weight of the ice.
That guy at the chop saw is John Reeves the ice artist, preparing the warm-up shack interior wall siding. Just the usual Fairbanks Alaska winter work at 17 degrees below Zero F. Outside winter work is enjoyable, no mosquitoes. The shack is becoming an upscale ice art studio. From behind its large window facing the ice, John directs the shaping of the ice for esthetic appeal. We walk into the shack with crampons on, but do not climb the decorative walls. There are a few peanut shells on the floor. We also discuss the next door Radome's interesting future.
27 November. Ya fer good grief sakes, just because it is 28 degrees below Zero F, these wuzy guys that talk about ice climbing, stay home to keep their wine cellars, beer stashes and tomato plants from freezing. I drank my wine and headed for the ice, to see what be happenin. The color technician was the only other dude there. While he was waiting for the other sorts, he tried his new, refined system for throwing a line over the top, with a dog ball-throwing stick, specially modified, the right size of weight, a 4 ounce lead ball tied to 50 lb fishing line tied to 550 cord and the rope. The goal was the summit of the south tower. Well, the plastic cup at the end of the throwing stick was a bit stiff, on account of the cold. It did not flex like it was supposed to. It hung onto the lead ball until it let go on the horizontal vector, slamming the lead ball into the ice in front of the thrower. I was watching, and was amused. The ice was discernably affronted. A few technique adjustments were instituted, including the slaunchwise throw with a rhetorical boost. After a dozen or so more adjustments, with the ball not reaching the top, by that time the tower was sufficiently disgusted that one of its ice wings reached out, snatched the weight, dropped it down inside the tower icicles somewhere, and would not let go. At 51 pounds of tugging, and a sharp swear word, the line snapped. The weight, which was covered with yellow tape, will be found next summer. An effort was made at solo climbing, but the hard, dinner-plating ice did not meet OSHIT safety standards for solo climbs. Cold ice is way hard. Failure was formally decreed. The pipe section and all that climbing stuff were dragged back to the bottom of the hill.
27 November,
continued. Well, about that time, another Fairbanks Alaska ice
climbing tough guy, who had likewise saved his scant wine cellar
from the threat of freezing, showed up, with less good sense than
the color technician who had just failed, so they were shortly
back up at the ice. It was a frightful climb. The bad part was
the belayer, standing directly below the climber, seeing one of
the climber's tools unexpectedly pull, when said climber was ten
or so feet up, while putting in the first screw, before it was
in. That was a bit close to the climber landing on the belayer's
feet. It would have not been so bad if the belayer had not seen
it happen, and laughed. It got worse from there. It was a major
effort to get the ice screws into the concrete-hard ice, and as
hard to get them back out later. Ice that cold is really hard.
Tell the ice climbing equipment purveyors to invent a battery
heated ice screw teeth.
But success was had, mostly on account as the tower is not very high yet. 5 feet of pipe was added to the south tower. It being late by then, pipe was not added to the north tower. So the current totals are 55 feet of pipe in the North Tower, and 50 feet of pipe in the South Tower.
Then the entire crew, with John the ice artist who had been directing the show, sat around in the warm-up shack and told wine stories.
Oh, that is the North Tower in the left photo, and the South Tower in the right photo. Notice the faint cool purple accents in the north Tower ice. John the ice artist figured out how to add color to the water line. No more plain white ice for that tower.
I do not mean to suggest that it was cold out there, but I, the web slave, am sitting at this computer, uploading this stuff, with my climbing harness still on. I thought the ice on my center carabiner would have thawed by now. Well, I can't really turn the heat up, on account of the cost of heating fuel, and nobody paying for this foolishness.
Oh, so the other guy emailed the web slave the following photos. The color technician thought he was being belayed all that time. Next time the color tech will belay the other guy, with a camera. The extra red rope was tied to the pipe section to be pulled up. The last photo shows the color tech attempting to meditate an ice screw into the ice, while he was attempting to meditate the warmth back into his fingers.
27 November continued in the below 4 South Tower photos by Jerimiah Miller.
29 November. Photos below. The temperature got back up to 0 degrees F. Nice climbing, but flat light conditions in heavy overcast. When the pipeline security helicopter flew by, cruising the nearby Alaska oil pipeline, looking for terrorists with sharp objects, the color tech at the top of the ice tower could see his skids, but not his rotor. Might be time to put the tower top light up there.
While waiting for the other guy to show up, the color tech used the crossbow trick, that he had refined, to launch a line over the top of the North Tower. It worked on the first shot, much to his initial confusion. 100 feet of 50 pound fishing line, then 100 feet of 550 cord and then the rope. He pulled the rope over and anchored it on the other side. With a rope over the top, he soloed the route with a Soloist self belay cam. Added 13 feet of pipe to the North Tower, two 5 foot sections, and a 3 foot section. There are now 68 feet of pipe total in the North Tower. In the 9 days and cold weather, since we last visited the North Tower top, it became completely capped over with ice. The water spray from the nozzles was encased in a cavern of ice, collecting the water and forcing it to run down and out through voids in the sides of the tower. After turning the water off, and chopping through the roof, the color tech had to climb down inside the cavern to get to the nozzle head. Nice in there, but a bit moist. The highest ice wings were already 10 feet above the nozzle head that was replaced.
We measured the height of the bluff on which the ice towers were startetd. The top of the bluff is 70 feet above the flat by the highway. So the 65 foot high North Tower, with the steep bluff below it, covered with ice extending down from the tower, including vertical sections on the bluff, currently offers 135 feet of climbing. Cool.
Four photos below, by Jay Turo.
Next photos on Twin Towers Page 3.
05-06 Ice Towers 1
05-06 Ice Towers 3
05-06 Ice Towers 4
05-06 Ice Towers 5
05-06 Ice Towers 6
05-06 Ice Towers 7
05-06 Ice Towers 8
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03-04 Ice Tower
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