The winter of 2000 found me with a lot of time on
my hands since I was no longer "living" the american middle class
dream. I was unemployed and homeless. Well, not exactly homeless, thanks to
a friend of mine who suggested I could easily find a job in 
Charlottesville,
Virginia. It seems that C'ville had about a 1.5% unemployment rate at the time.
I was happy that I moved back there and was able to bolster that figure, albeit
by the smallest of amounts. This same friend thought the ideal place for me
to find middleclass nirvana was VALUE
AMERICA.
Fortunately, they were beyond the hiring stage when I arrived. Enough of that.
Central VA was in the process of a serious cold snap and I was looking for climbable
ice. I knew a northeast facing falls and decided to take a hike up to it with
my faithful (when he's not chasing deer) dog, Buster.
I parked my truck at the end of the road and started the hiked up the trail.
Along 
the
way I found numerous spots where I could ice boulder and spent a fair amount
of time doing just that. Glad I didn't have to explain to anyone passing by
what I was doing with all this STUFF on, hanging off a piece of ice that wasn't
4 feet tall, sort of like a sit start for a bouldering problem.
After numerous hours of distraction, I found myself
getting close to my intended destination when I happened to glance to my right...
Lo and behold, what did I see? Across the stream and up in this hollow was all
this white stuff, and there wasn't any snow
on the ground, at least not enough for what I saw. Needless to say, I had to
get a better look so off I went down and across the stream and back up the other
bank bushwacking my way towards the what turned out to be a glorious ampitheater
or ice. What a find!!! I couldn't believe my eyes. Glorious ice! Wonderful ice!
Steep stuff, easy stuff, trees for top roping, what more could one ask? Over
the next two weeks, I spent a half dozen days up there climbing everything I
could, which wasn't really much since I didn't have a soloist, couldn't convince
an ice climbing friend to come out, and didn't have a belay slave. I had fun
though.
PS - Sorry for the poor pics, I'll blame it on the
camera. Unfortunately the ice only comes in like this every few years, so it
might be a while before I can do any better.
Charlottesville,
Virginia. It seems that C'ville had about a 1.5% unemployment rate at the time.
I was happy that I moved back there and was able to bolster that figure, albeit
by the smallest of amounts. This same friend thought the ideal place for me
to find middleclass nirvana was VALUE
AMERICA.
Fortunately, they were beyond the hiring stage when I arrived. Enough of that.
Central VA was in the process of a serious cold snap and I was looking for climbable
ice. I knew a northeast facing falls and decided to take a hike up to it with
my faithful (when he's not chasing deer) dog, Buster.
I parked my truck at the end of the road and started the hiked up the trail.
Along 
the
way I found numerous spots where I could ice boulder and spent a fair amount
of time doing just that. Glad I didn't have to explain to anyone passing by
what I was doing with all this STUFF on, hanging off a piece of ice that wasn't
4 feet tall, sort of like a sit start for a bouldering problem. 
on the ground, at least not enough for what I saw. Needless to say, I had to
get a better look so off I went down and across the stream and back up the other
bank bushwacking my way towards the what turned out to be a glorious ampitheater
or ice. What a find!!! I couldn't believe my eyes. Glorious ice! Wonderful ice!
Steep stuff, easy stuff, trees for top roping, what more could one ask? Over
the next two weeks, I spent a half dozen days up there climbing everything I
could, which wasn't really much since I didn't have a soloist, couldn't convince
an ice climbing friend to come out, and didn't have a belay slave. I had fun
though.
