Like the Alps, but in Iowa

Cedar Falls, Iowa — SURROUNDED by cornfields that stretch to the horizon, in a place where molehills pass for mesas, avid outdoorsman Don Briggs has long dreamed of climbing a mountain.

So he decided to build one.

Briggs spends most winter nights hosing down a quartet of grain silos on a friend's farm -- and relies on the Corn Belt's frigid temperatures to transform the water into frozen walls of ice that tower nearly 70 feet straight up.

By the time he's done, the ice encasing the outside of the silos is 4 feet thick in spots -- and ready for the onslaught of ice climbers drawn to this strange marriage of farming and extreme sports.

"The word 'lunatic' was bandied about quite a bit. Even my wife thought I was insane when I first told her I wanted to do this," said Briggs, 57, a physical education instructor at the University of Northern Iowa. "To me, it made perfect sense. The highest point in Iowa is going to be on top of a silo."

On a recent morning, Briggs walked up the gravel road that cuts through the farm, past the candy-cane-striped barn and battered green tractor. Buttoning up his coat, he hunched his shoulders and tucked his gloved hands into pockets to shield them from the biting wind.

As he strode past a storage shed, Briggs glanced at a thermometer hanging on the metal siding. It was 18 degrees -- in the sun. He headed into the shade and stepped up to the base of the silos. It was early in the season: Only one of the concrete towers stayed cold enough to preserve the blue-toned glassy pillars and ornate icicle chandeliers.

Briggs greeted a group of fellow climbers huddled against a stack of hay bales and slipped a safety rope through a harness strapped around his waist. (The rope is looped through a metal ring mounted at the top of the silo; it snakes down to a climbing partner on the ground who controls its slack during the ascent and descent.)

Briggs clamped metal spikes onto his boots, picked up two ice axes and began to climb his "mountain."

He plotted each move carefully, an analytic dance between an athlete and a crumbling, dripping, melting stage.

Slam ax, held in the right hand, into the ice above the head. Step upward with the right foot, then the left. Breathe. Repeat the motion, now using the ax held in the left hand.

Sound easy? Try it on ice that's as polished as a mirror. And consider this: All that held the trim, 5-foot-7 man aloft were slender metal spikes on the tips of his toes and the two ax blades -- each about the length and width of a ruler.