I spied ice in Garfield Gulch while driving along Schuster Parkway the day before. We didn't need the usual o-dark-thirty start for this day of adventure. We walked into the gulch with ice tools, crampons, harnesses, and a rope. Jim spotted the first line, emerging from beneath the tree routes and partially obscured by ivy hanging down from the hillside. He spotted it, so the climb was his-- Dregs of the Ivy League (WI3). The ice was well bonded to the mudstone of the hillside.
I repeated the climb, but only after knocking down a free-hanging icicle. We may be free soloing these routes without ropes, but helmets are not optional. Ice climbing is dangerous business.
My line was a 15-foot wide beauty. And maybe 8 feet high. So I traversed it and named it the T-town Traverse (WI2).
At the end of the Traverse was a unique line that ended with a hooking move into the tree roots. Jim named it M&J Figure 4ever (WI2).
We exhausted the options in Garfield Gulch with some pretty efficient climbing. That and we never roped up. Unfortunately, we couldn't access the lines right above Schuster Parkway without causing accidents (cars, not us). We opted for the deepest darkest parts of Puget Gulch. Unfortunately, the groundwater was too ample and warm to freeze, so we couldn't realize our dream of climbing all three of Tacoma's gulches. Darn.Instead, we headed out to Point Defiance, for the beautiful lines I had scouted the previous day. Unfortunately, we forgot to check the tide charts and faced high tide at Owen Beach. Our first ascents would have to wait a few hours. So we went home and had lunch. We stayed stoked though.
The tide was low enough by 3:30 pm, so we loaded up again and drove 3 minutes into Point Defiance Park. The bluffs offered limitless possibilities. Not really, but there were a few. The high tide had reached my best scouted line, and the whole thing had fallen off by the time we arrived. Or the people picking off the icicles yesterday and throwing them into Puget Sound did the trick. We would have to settle for my backup plan.
The ice was in. I geared up, opting again for the freedom that free soloing offers. My tools went in well to the plastic ice. I knocked off the first few feet of the climb but got in the swing of things and cruised to the top of the pitch, buoyed by the knowledge that no one had been here before. In winter, on ice anyway.
Jim quickly repeated the climb, and while he was on the ice, two kayakers happened by yelling "First ascent!" They were as stoked as we were, so we named the climb after them-- Defiant Kayakers (WI3). (No, not Floating Dumbasses, as the mystery kayaker suggested. Never got his name.)
There are still lines to be climbed in Tacoma. More first ascents to put up. Jim checked out a free-standing pillar, but it needs another week of Arctic blast to fill out a bit. It could be the highest unclimbed waterfall left in Tacoma.
We were totally stoked to put up so many first ascents in one day, and probably the only ice climbs within the Tacoma City limits. We were heavily influenced by previous Banff Mountain Film Festival movies by Will Gadd, free soloing, and the extreme huckleberry pickers. We're thinking of scouting Bonney Lake during the next Arctic blast. It might take another decade, or it may never happen again. But if it does, we'll be out scouting those ice lines.
