Ice climbing in the Adirondacks has got to be one of life's great pleasures. After having a terrific time climbing there over New Years, we decided we had to go back for more.  My climbing partners on this trip were Marty Molitoris, John O'Marra, and Chris Meyer.  That's right, some desert dryed bolt clippin' jet jockeys can hook on ice too!

At long last...  I've been wanting to climb Chounard's Gully for years now.  Somehow we always ended up climbing other things 'first' and never quite got around to getting back to do this appealing and asthetic route.  Alas, early starts are something we all need work on.  We arrived at the scenic Chapel Pond to find 2 parties already on the route.  Not to worry.  It was early yet (for us), and by the time we racked up and walked across the lake, we figured those parties would be well on their way.  We got to the base as the last climber ahead of us was starting up and we commenced to stacking the rope and selecting gear.  We decided to split into two teams and climb simultaneously.  John and Chris would take the right side while Marty and I climbed the left side.  I took the first pitch but was hampered by falling ice from the parties ahead of us.  This is getting to be a regular (if uncomfortable) occurance.  Maybe we should really do something about these late starts.  This isn't Scotland after all.  Perhaps we should try something like daylight savings time, where we change our watches for headlamp battery savings time whenever we go climbing. *grin*

Anyway, after begining to work my way up through the first chute, I opted to do something of a variation a little further off to the left.  This would take us out of the shower of chunks from the climbers ahead of us, and offered some more interesting challenges with a steep bulge accessed from a narrow ramp burried in snow. Under the snow was bare rock and the trick was to get up out of the snow, onto the ice.  The ice had formed something like a shell on top of snow.  It was such that a good screw placement could not be found, so I tied off a small sapling and started up.  A little further up it thickened enough to take a good screw.  I topped out over the bulge, into the deep snow again, and moved into a small clump of pine trees to set up a belay to bring Marty up.  From our perch, we got a good view of Chapel Pond and were able to watch Chris climb up to John, who had anchored himself about 30 feet farther up on the same side of the gully.  Marty headed up the next pitch wasting no time.  I followed promptly and got to him in time to watch Chris lead through a nice steep section and top out on the other side of the gully.

From there we rappeled back to the base.  As it turns out, the route wasn't what I expected.  Actually completing the route felt sort of anti-climatic after the long anticipation of climbing it.  Don't get me wrong.  It's a beautiful route.  It just wasn't everything I expected.  In retrospect, Multiplication Gully was a much nicer route.  Perhaps because I hadn't given it the thought I gave to Chounard's and I really didn't have any preconceptions of what it would be like. Fortunately, there was plenty more good ice climbing to be had...

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