Silverplume Falls

Saturday morning we decided to stay close and dink around on Silverplume Falls.  Jeremy was at my place by 6:15am.  We had my pickup loaded and stopped by Fred’s to see if him and Andrea were still on schedule.  They were loading up there truck as we pulled up.  They were bringing their skis and planning on hitting a resort after we climbed.  We shoved out ahead of them only to run into Early ski traffic.  We stopped off in Idaho Springs for a cup of coffee and to kill some time for Fred and Andrea to catch up.  We left and finished the short drive to Silverplume. and Jumped out to get ready.  Fred and Andrea pulled up and we heading up to the falls a few minutes later.  We started by going up the rock but soon opted to stop and put on our crampons and walk the creek.  This is a little game we ice climbers always play on the approach, How far can we get without putting on crampons and on the way out, how far can we get before we take them off.  Once the crampons were on it was less than a 10 Minute walk up the frozen creek.   It’s an interesting setting because the creek bed is littered with old mining artifacts, pipes, rail track, old mining cars...  We soon made it to the bottom of the falls and saw how thin it was.  But we were there, we were alone, and the Wind was dying down.  There was a steady spindrift of sand and pebbles while we set up but it soon died off too.

 Jeremy ran the first lead up the Most difficult section of Ice.  When he got to the Top I lowered him and pulled the rope.  I needed to get a lead on Silverplume this year… 

I lead it without incident and was pretty happy about it. 

Andrea lead the slightly easier right line but it was her first lead ever.  In fact, hiking into our climb last weekend an exact quote from Andrea was “I don’t have any interest in leading ice” to instantly volunteering to lead one week later .  Jeremy Lead all the routes including two mixed lines placing cams and a Nut that blew while he was cleaning the route.  Fred didn’t do any leading this day.  He did solo both ice lines and seemed to be content.  We got out of there and enjoyd some microbrews at Tommyknockers...