Winterfest Fun in Redstone

This past weekend marked the first Redstone Winterfest, a celebration of winter that included ice climbing demos and clinics. My friend Ya and I decided to check it out, and we met up Saturday morning at a casual 10:30am, thanks in no small part to the groovy disco beats of Sparkle Motion in Carbondale the night before. We didn’t have much (if any) of a climbing agenda, but wanted to see what the festival was all about. First up was a stop by the vendor booths to see if there was any cool demo gear left, but apparently you had to be a little more motivated to get the goods. We did pick up a copy of the informal ice guide Rock and Ice put together for the event, and headed up to Coal Creek to see what could be found.

In the right conditions, this area boasts a variety of excellent lines, but this year has been lean and not much was happening. Still, a few of the mixed routes were climbable, and a smattering of ice as well. Upon arrival, however, it wasn’t a gleaming blue pillar that got our attention, but a big orange tent that said “free hot drinks.” We reasoned that this was a good place to start, and we headed inside to enjoy some hot chocolate and delicious donut holes. We considered spending the rest of the day in the cozy tent, chatting with the friendly folks inside, but decided we’d gone through the trouble of digging our ice gear out of storage, so we might as well go have a look at some climbs.

The event organizers had hung top ropes on a few of the lines, and we tried to start things off on Stoney Vision, but the pre-rigged TR had frozen in place. Despite my best efforts to unstick it, we were denied, though we did enjoy the steep butt slide back to the road. We thought about hiking back up just to session the butt slide, but decided instead to go see what our friends were up to at the Man Camp cave. When we arrived, there were various levels of sending occurring, including Will Gadd pulling off an impressive onsight of a wild looking M10. Ya took a lap on a steep M8, but I prefer something a little more casual to warm up on, so after some more socializing, we decided the Drool was our best bet for swinging some tools (given our important criteria of not wanting to walk more than 10 minutes from the road.)

We hopped back in the van for the short ride to the next climb and soon stood below an excellent and cruiser looking Drool. Some years this route doesn’t even come in at all, so it was great to see it so fat. Apparently Will Gadd was following us around, because he too soon showed up, and we alternated between our top rope laps and him free soloing the pillar for some photogs. Not to be outdone, Ya climbed it without crampons, proving that…well, I’m not sure what he proved, but it looked fun at least.

By now it was late in the day, and I had an appointment with destiny later at the climbing gym, so we swung by the booths one last time to say goodbye to some friends and headed home. Perhaps next year the ice will be a little more plentiful, but despite the lean conditions it appeared everyone enjoyed themselves, and I imagine they’ll be back again next year.

A big thanks to all the folks who helped put the event together, especially the Rock and Ice crew.