Ice Climbing in the Midwest

Excellent conditions today, good turn out of climbers. Next outing is at 10AM on Xmas eve morning, the 24th. Gonna get real cold here again, so ice building will be taking place to repair our damage from rain and climbing last 2 days.

Great day on the ice today,,,plenty of new ice formed in last 48 hours of severe cold. Good turnout and conditions. Pics posted from noon session of climbers on our ice silo on 26th. Next outing will be into the new year as we head for family time ahead and will miss ice opportunities for about a week. Keep in touch at the facebook page to find out latest news on our ice fest plans for Feb.7-9th weekend.

Chili Cook Off Night!

Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Time7:00pm

Where:
at silo

Brew up your best batch of chili and bring it out to Climb! Starts at 7 PM! Bring your favorite adult beverage... Rock out on ice! $20 plus chili to pass...and gear rental if needed.

"Nice Ice" Ice Fest!

Saturday, February 8, 2014 (and all weekend)
Time: 9:00am till ???

Where:
at silo

Sat. Feb. 8th, All Day! Climbing, Music, Games, Competition. Final details TBD. SAVE THE DATE! Maybe winter camping.... Clinics.. Bring a dish for potluck...

Full Moon climbing NIGHTS! 2 nights to climb!

Wednesday, January 15, 2014 AND Jan. 16
Time: 7:00pm

Where:
at silo

Open climbing under the full moon and silo lights.
Jan. 15 and 16th. Starts at 7 PM each night. Bring a dish to pass.... $20 each plus rentals, if needed.

Getting fat ice!

Great day,,,we should have had many more out here!!! Snowing very heavily already at 9PM...deep cold coming in for 72 hours.

Woodchuck ATC wrote:Great day,,,we should have had many more out here!!! Snowing very heavily already at 9PM...deep cold coming in for 72 hours.

One more midwest post, urging you folks not to go damage up the melting ice at SRSP. Let if form up again, wait for the refreeze. Save the long drive from Chicago, come down instead to our ice silo on Sunday to climb all you want. We don't care how messed up and busted our ice gets...cuz we can refreeze it with a controlled water flow with cold temps again, faster than nature gives us a filled in waterfall at SRSP. Climb Sunday, the 12th. Promise you can leave early enough to get home and watch the Golden Globes award show by 8PM. see 'ya. !!!

Woodchuck ATC wrote:One more midwest post, urging you folks not to go damage up the melting ice at SRSP. Let if form up again, wait for the refreeze. Save the long drive from Chicago, come down instead to our ice silo on Sunday to climb all you want. We don't care how messed up and busted our ice gets...cuz we can refreeze it with a controlled water flow with cold temps again, faster than nature gives us a filled in waterfall at SRSP. Climb Sunday, the 12th. Promise you can leave early enough to get home and watch the Golden Globes award show by 8PM. see 'ya. !!!

WhooHoo!!!! Rockin' night of ice climbs. Girls night out! Rookies on ice, Chicks with Pics' if I can borrow their phrase tonight. Angela, Rose and Molly kicked ice in ill fittig boots but still got to the top. Nice effort from all! Pics below,,sorry I can't identify who is which one. (No, the one girl is not Tori Allen, but looks like her). Ice held up just great through our 2 heavy rain days. We're looking good to freeze up more again next week in the upcoming cold spell.

Honor the Order of the Pink Flamingo!

For those who don't live in the Midwest, if you are lucky enough to have all the ice you need and don't like this post, well we envy you for sure.. Just saying this today: We are so out of the norm with our ice silo for the Chicago area, that the Chicago Fox TV news weather girl posted up a pic twice this AM on the news. {3 years ago we had one of their reporters out here climbing the ice on live satellite feed} Fox asked the question 'what do you do in this deep cold', and chose our ice silo as quite novel from their point of view. A 10 second blurb in her weather photos of the day. Not only do we hope it encourages people, I'm sure it will stun people around here to see this. They are for the most part, NOT outdoor loving and adventure sports kind of people in this busy city. We look like strange foul weather freaks I'm sure to most.
It's near 20 below here, record cold for this date once again, with wind chills near minus 40. Minus 27 is the worst it's ever been in Chicago, several decades ago. (Besides the record huge snowfalls, blizzards and storms of '67, '78 and '79). We are still building more ice for the weeks ahead. It is something quite different for those city minded folks of Chicago. Thus the interest by news media here.

Just one update to these posts for weekend,,as most are off to climb at Muenising. Nobody here for our ice this weekend, closed. Next weekend the 7-8-9th there should be an 'ice fest' here at the silo. Check in by Monday to Juggler for details .

Full moon climbing on Wed. night, the 12th, about 6:30PM under the lights. Be there, the temps should be in lower 20's for once instead of below zero tomorrow.

anybody living within a few hours should not miss out on climbing at the ice silo. I was there for the 1st annual Illinois ice fest and had a blast!

So how fast was the drive home to SC? Under 12 hours? I'd need two days for sure at least. Thanks again for coming out to join in the fun.

george wilkey wrote:anybody living within a few hours should not miss out on climbing at the ice silo. I was there for the 1st annual Illinois ice fest and had a blast!

Great full moon, cloudless most of night, no wind, it was fabulous out there. First time climber, 11 yr. old Madeline, was beating ice with those little X-monsters all night long. Thanks to all who came out.