Here's an account of our weekend by John Angulo
Saturday morning, we drove past a rotten looking "Children of the Sun" (WI 5, 1p), and Jeff led "Champagne" . The climb is listed in the book as WI 5 but we felt it was closer to a WI 4 (at least in present conditions). Conditions were as to be expected of recently formed steep ice - lots of icicles. First pitch wasn't too taxing, but the second pitch was nowhere near formed. On the way out, we ran into Jens and tvashtarkatena (Matt) from CC.com on their way in.
Driving up the lake, we settled on "Zenith" (WI 5, 2p), which seemed to be the best formed of the roadside classics. Here we dealt with pulses of downpouring wet spray every 90 seconds for almost the duration of pitch one. Jeff led this true WI 5, but we ran out of daylight and bailed before I had a chance to epic on pitch two.
Sunday morning we took our chances hiking into the secluded cirque containing "The Emerald" (WI 4/5, 2p), and found it in fat shape. At least, it could have been naively imagined from a distance to be fat, but it turned out to be the most technical matrix of icicles and mushrooms all weekend. I led the short WI 3 start, and Jeff tackled the WI 5 crux.
Oh yeah, Jeff had a nasty stomach flu all weekend, but somehow it didn't really slow him down :).
View of "Champagne" pitch #1
John at the base "Champagne"
Me leading "Champagne"
"Zenith" (WI 5, 2p) as seen from the road
Me leading the 1st pitch of "Zenith"
John approaches "The Emerald" thru the sage bushes
View up "The Emerald" from it's base
John leading the 1st pitch of "The Emerald"
Me leading the 2nd pitch of "The Emerald"
John at the top of the climb
Some scenery above the climb
