Ice Climbing

An avalanche on Mt. Washington slammed into a climbing party Friday, killing two men, officials said. Seven men on a mountaineering and ice-climbing trip were swept 1,000 feet down Tuckerman Ravine just before 11:30 a.m., officials said. Two of the buried men were killed, one managed to free himself and a fourth was hospitalized.

Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba, Canada , is one of those places where they joke about the four seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction. Because the road-work season is over in this prairie province, it must be "almost winter" in what some folks jokingly call Winterpeg. You laugh or you cry, eh? It's in the rugged spirit of our northern neighbors that members of the Alpine Club of Canada approach the frigid months. It was founded in 1906 as the National Mountaineering Club, and its first headquarters was, curiously, in Winnipeg, hundreds of miles from the nearest mountain.

At this time of year in parts of Montana, it's all about ice. Climbing it, that is, as evidenced at right. "We've had phenomenal formations in early November," said Chris Naumann of Barrel Mountaineering in Bozeman. "The ice is cooperating." Which means some waterfalls are frozen solid or rock faces are coated with ice from spring-fed seepage -- good news for those who want to learn some cool moves with ice axes and crampons.

"In January the ice is as hard as glass and the ice axes penetrate only to the depth of a thumbnail." Tirolean climber Rudi Mayr paused for a second in his description of the ultimate adventure of midwinter: Glacier climbing in the Austrian Alps. "Every meter is like balancing on raw eggs, every movement is strenuous," he continued. "The ice bolts squeak every time they are screwed in, as though they needed to be greased. . . ." But, come March, it's another story.

It's one of those perfect, sunny afternoons, a time when most working stiffs are tethered to their desks, and Patagonia's founder, Yvon Chouinard, is pushing the limits of a wave peeling across an empty beach. The wave isn't that big, shoulder high perhaps. Still, it's powerful enough to snap Chouinard's surfboard and slam him into the sand. Chouinard comes up sputtering, but unfazed. The board's nose dangles limp and useless, like a broken limb.

Catch the moon rising over Lake Tahoe this summer with West Shore Café & Inn's “Full Moon Rising” celebrations. The series kicks off in Homewood  on July 3, and other events take place Aug. 1 and Aug. 31; (530) 525-5200 . . . . One of America's best train trips gets even better this summer as the Alaska Railroad combines rail travel with glacier and ice climbing , in a day trip out of Anchorage; www.ascendingpath.com and www.alaskarailroad.com . . . . Still looking for a Memorial weekend escape?