Alaskan Alpine Club
2005-06 Twin Towers, Page 3 (other ice page links at bottom of page)
1 December - December 11. Continued on Page 4
1 December. I told you that once Big John Reeves the ice artist found out how to efficiently color the water in the line, expect more of what you see. However, appreciating the abilities of both nature and man, and thoughtfully analyzing the view from the ice tower window in the ice art studio by the highway, John has reserved the South Tower for the delicate (boring) hues of the crystalline wilderness water (laden with arsenic and gold) of the far frozen north, to complement the color abilities of man. The North Tower colors will change, and be covered with clear water in between. In brighter sun, and closer, the maroon and blue colors look way cool, accenting the frosted dollop caps and streaking down individual icicles between clear icicles.
John brought a 22 caliber ballistic retriever dog decoy launcher, with the heavy loads, to conveniently get a top rope line over the tower. Looked good, but loud. However, three tries were required for the shorter South Tower, to get the line barely over the top. So after having abandoned the throwing stick, and perfected the cross bow, now we gotta fine tune the ballistic decoy launcher if we expect it to be useful for the towers when they are higher next time. Otherwise we are beset with desperate lead climbing, albeit as usual. If anyone has an extra B-40 communist guerrilla al queda insurgent taliban freedom fighter rocket launcher we can use, with a couple dozen rounds of ammo, that would be better. You can keep the shaped charge warheads for your own projects. We just need the propulsion part.
That is Big John taking a picture of his color adventure.
And thereupon we added 10 feet of pipe to the South Tower (left photo). We did not add any pipe to the North Tower (middle photo).
Therefore there are 60 feet of pipe in the South Tower, plus 70 feet of bluff below the tower.
And 68 feet of pipe in the North Tower, plus 70 feet of bluff ice below the tower.
The photos below are by the Jay Turo climbing camera guy.
The left photo below is of our first lateral defense rocket test shot that the government told us to not release, so copy it right away before it is deleted for national insecurity reasons.
The middle photo below is of the North Tower, from the top of the South Tower.
And the right photo shows the Homeland Security spy plane in the upper left corner, explaining why the aviation monitoring technician is hiding down behind the top wings.
6 December. Photos below. It was harrowing, nay, desperate. The ballistic modified dog decoy launcher B-40 rocket gun worked flawlessly, first shot. 200 feet of light nylon construction layout cord, right over the top center. You might notice the V notch shapes at the top. Those are where the climbing rope knot would not pull through, even after a long time of flipping the cord and rope and flailing innovative swear words. Back to the old fashion lead climb thing. Dicey conditions. Large sections of dollops broke away under the ice tools. The climb was a bit slow, but after we got to the top, we complemented each other on our fine technique in face of adversity, as is the tradition among ice climbers, to keep fooling those other guys with our refined rhetoric. The other guys are the other climbers. Normal people know enough to not believe a word of it. The Jay Turo factor took the photos again, including that one where the color tech appears to be fully secure while he assumed that he was fully on belay. For optimum safety, never climb with another climber. Way cool ice shapes developing. We will try to get some detail photos sometime. A web cam on these things would be nuts, but there is always a wide chasm between cool stuff and the funded programs pandering pablum in their ignorance of the cool stuff. If we get some money for a web cam, the foregoing does not apply to us.
Oh yeah, we added 5 feet of pipe to the South Tower. So therefore there are 65 feet of pipe in the South Tower, plus 70 feet of bluff below the tower. And 68 feet of pipe in the North Tower, plus 70 feet of bluff ice below the tower. The ice will normally form from 3 to 8 feet above the nozzle head, within a few days of adding a new section of pipe.
And this from our Salt Spring Island British Columbia Twin Towers Objectivity Analyst.... "A cold-snap here is when the Bar-tender of our local pub walks into the cooler to refresh the beer supply."
Well, that pretty much explains the temperature in Fairbanks.
11 December. Photos below. Ya fer good grief sakes, two other guys show up, both forgot ropes, one forgot a helmet, one forgot his ice tools, and he was the very same one who forgot to bring a bottle of wine for the post-function in the warm-up shack. It's a wonder that we did not forget to climb the ice. A few others showed up to dilute the guilt. Nice day. Ten degrees above 0 F. The goal was to add pipe to the North Tower. Dreary, toilsome work.
We did the old shoot-the-line-over-the-top trick with the ballistic modified dog decoy B-40 rocket launcher missile gun. Perfect, except the line came down over the absolute tips of two opposing wings. We got the rope over the top without a knot to catch in the ice V's, by tying and taping the light line to the end of the rope. Well, after a lot of flipping, jerking, whipping and thrashing the rope, with certain expressions in regard to the structural integrity of the ice, we got the rope off of only one tip. Sure made for some interesting thoughts while ascending the rope on Gibbs ascenders.
The rope ascender guy got ahead of the climber on the ice, and directly above him, and was therefore able to scoff at the small size of icicles he was raining down on the helmet of the climber.
We added 8 feet of pipe to the North Tower. Current totals are 76 feet of pipe in the North Tower, and 65 feet of pipe in the South Tower.
The caves and tunnels around the bottom, where the column meets the collar, are forming nicely. A person can go around most of the tower, inside. I have been in no few ice caves, and these have spectacular features in a miniature setting. I would suggest that the glacier ice cavers make these towers, just for the convenient, spectacular caves, but there are so few glacier ice cavers, and they have less money than the climbers. If you live anywhere in the north country around the world, spray water into the winter air. These things are fascinating.
After putting the pipe up, and turning the water back on, we climbed the bluff ice leading up to the tower. In fact we ended up climbing at night in the flood lights. Fine climbing conditions.
And then we sat around in the warm-up shack ragging the guy who forgot to bring the wine, which was an effective diversion from our own having forgot to bring wine.
You might notice one less tree on the right of the North Tower. The tree, and some impressive chunks of ice, are at the bottom of the bluff. Gravity thing. Fresh moose tracks going up the bluff between the towers. Moose have good front points. A lot of moose tracks at the top of the bluff, among the willows by the South Tower.
Do not mention these towers to any federal aviation agents. We do not have the blinkin lights at the top yet. The flood lights on the towers at night make them look way cool. We just got a night photo, uploaded on the Ice Towers 2 page. If any locals get a current night photo, email me a copy for this website, if you would be so kind.
The Jay Turo and Jerimiah Miller climber camera technicians took the photos below.
Webcam possibilities are being discussed, albeit with all the other grand ideas lacking grand time, grand money and grand energy.
It is somewhat embarrassing when one removes an ice screw, upon which one relied to stop a potential fall, and the ice comes with it.
More on Twin Towers 4 page (link below).
05-06 Ice Towers 4
05-06 Ice Towers 5
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05-06 Ice Towers 2
04-05 Ice Tower
03-04 Ice Tower
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