This is a homage to Jefe's great TR and my love of the music of Jane's Addiction which has had more than a marginal influence of my motivation when I go climbing. First we need to pay respects to the band itself. Please click on the link and let the music play while you read this. [Click to View YouTube Video] Well we all know that there wont be a lot of writing and an overabundance of pictures coming from me, but either way it will set the mood. After a blur of a drive we arrived in Alpine, MT and the spectacular East Rosebud Lake. You can probably guess from the title we had four days to spend climbing in Wyoming and Montana. I met my brother Dan who came up from Colorado and I took Jack who I busted out of school 15 minutes early for his spring break on Wednesday so I could miss the soccer mom gridlock in the Spearfish Middle School parking lot.

We camped just off the road right next to the creek. In the morning we slept in a little and packed to head up into the Canyon. We took a big selection of screws, a bunch of draws, and some v-thread material. We were going to go for California Ice or Spaghetti Falls. I had done both and both have huge approaches to great ice climbing with some of the most awe inspiring scenery I could ever want to see. We did not get started until 9 am and had to walk an extra mile due to snow drifts in the road so the plan was to probably do Spaghetti but keep our options open for Cali Ice depending on what things looked like when we got in there. On the way in you see California Ice first and once we saw it and what we thought was the melted top of Spaghetti we just headed up the gulley for California Ice. On the way in you see some awesome spires. This is the Upper Doublet and all of the other spires you see when hiking up there are really cool. Many look to have great crack systems and good rock but finding a safe approach may not be possible. Here's Jack on the first Ice step on the approach to Clifornia Ice. There is a lot of steep snow climbing in the gulley to get up to the falls with only a few short ice steps. The second second ice step was a little hollow.Did I mention you there is a lot of snow climbing on this route. It just keeps goingand going.
Did I mention there is great scenery and unreal route potential for prospective mountaineers.I call this thing the super couloir of the Beartooths but I have no Idea of what it is really called, but it looks like the chimney could go and is probably a couple of thousand feet long, but no one will know if no one looks. I think this thing is the Bears Belly or something but looks to be about the size of the Black Canyon.This is Ice Dagons.It is a thousand foot ice and mixed climb that goes to the plateau.

Did I mention the snow just keeps going, oh a, just kidding we do eventually get to the ice and what a spectacular flow it is. The full flow is about 200m but the first two pitches are the business. They are two full pitches with a 60m rope, We had 60m half ropes and my brother did a nice job of leading the first pitch but he wanted to make a tree that was 65m away. That put both Jack and I on the climb and we had little communication any more because of the 60 meters between us. This sucked because we were now on terrain where there were no ledges to stand on and we had to both climb together to not burn out our calves. We climbed that way for about 50 feet to where I kicked out a 2 inch ledge that I could stand on my heel and not burn out my calves. I then climbed to the next screw and had Jack climb to the two inch ledge and stand there while I climbed the remaining 150feet to the anchor. I had to be very careful to not knock ice on him for the next 15 feet but thankfully Dan traversed to the right after that to get to the belay trees. Jack then stiled out the rest of the 150 feet to the anchor. By the time we all got to there it was after 4 and we had to make the painful decision to go down after coming all that way. It ended up taking us until way after dark to get to back to the vehicles. [Click to View YouTube Video]



[Click to View YouTube Video]That night we made bacon wrapped pork tenderloins in jerk marinade, had frozen pizza in a Dutch oven, ate all the munchies we could find, and chowed fried asparagus to the point we could eat no more. We vowed to do something easy tomorrow as none of us could hardly walk by the time the day was over. We were thinking of doing a hell roaring falls an easy 3+/4 with a twenty minute walk and then drive to Cody to get a hotel, eat out, doing some shopping at the Sierra Trading Post Outlet Store and hit the hay.

We got to bed by 11 or so and I got up a little after sunrise and made a big breakfast. After Dan got up and we got some joe in us we decided it would be best to spend our second day doing the Ramp a thousand foot 5.9 rock climb right above our camp instead of the previously mentioned casual day. Needless to stay jack was pissed. He was seeing huge burgers and new gortex in his future and now his day had turned into a horrible bushwack approach and a big, obscure, dirty rock climb. Well we eventually made it up to the climb and it just kept looking better and better. The 5.7 first pitch ended up having a great handcrack that went though a roof and then Dan lead the 70m rope close to the end. Here he is pulling through the roof on a truly great crack. What happened next is like another 700 feet of really fun really great crack climbing. I had expected nothing like this as I had eyeballed it for many years on various ice climbing and sightseeing trips and wanted to do it but had reservations due to some less than inspiring reports from other climbers. The easy but fun cracks just kept going Jack ended up smiling by the time he got to the first belay and he all but forgot about being unhappy at the beginning of the day. We ran back to camp, tore down camp unloaded some our 44 mag bear spray into some empty cans, and headed to the Cody for the aforementioned hotel room. It is about a two hour drive to Cody from Alpine and we got there all safe save my brother and Jack getting one speeding ticket from and incredibly kind Wyo HP while I was in front driving in my car. We made some hotel dresser top dinner of leftover braised short ribs in a stroganoff sauce with mushrooms and noodles while miraculously not setting off the sprinkler system in the hotel. We all bathed and went to bed unsure about tomorrow.

[Click to View YouTube Video]You know what Jane Says? Jane says to get high on boulder. So that is what we did. High on boulder? Is this some hydroponic grown in Wyoming ready to be shipped to Colorado to be sold on the black market? No this is the iconic ice climb in the south fork that we knew would be fat and classic and a great outing for Jack. We had our doubts about the conditions driving in as it had been in the 50's, 60's and even 70's so much this winter that we knew much of the climbs would be melted out. We were confident High on Boulder would still be in as this grows so fat every year. HOB climb has been my nemesis for many years as I have lead the crux pitch twice previously but hung once each time due to its long and sustained nature. The first problem was getting across the river.Luckily someone had left a bridge. We then hiked up the gulley to the several hundred meter flow. Dan quickly dispensed the first pitch and then the second pitch went fairly uneventfully for me due to the fat ice and warm temps. I had to traverse some rotten ice at the top but it offered some easy placements and was quickly over. We rapped after that due to the rotten nature of the upper pitches, but not before seeing some sheep on the ledges at the start of the climb.Dan decided he wanted to leave after the climb so we went to the silver dollar in Cody for huge burgers and caught the end of the st pattys day parade. So we then drove the 5 hours home and I was in bed by 11pm.

In the end we had three days of great climbing in some great country with tons of potential for big routes all over for those that are tough as nails. I was disappointed not finishing California Ice but it gave me the chance to introduce Jack into some of the huge ice climbs the northern rockies have to offer and I got to do a great new rock climb. I got to slay an old nemesis in fine style and got to spend some quality time with my brother. All in all it was a great trip that needs to end with this. [Click to View YouTube Video]and appreciate how this area and Jane's Addiction continues to be the source of such inspiration and constant adventure for me.