Last Saturday, Eric and I got in our first real day of ice climbing this season (the Big Four ice caves don't count). Eric wanted to go to Leavenworth, but I had made plans to meet up with KJ and his friends at Alpental. Wisely, Eric deferred to my plan and we showed up at Alpental at 9.30am. In a drizzle. The parking lot was jammed and I was briefly worried that I'd never be able to find my Subaru among the 200 other Outbacks parked there that day. Changing into our boots and strapping on our ice tools, we stood out like Army recruits at the Folklife Festival. Snowboarders everywhere you looked, and no hope of finding KJ. We were late for our appointed meeting time anyway.

The parking lot was rated WI1, but we made it up to the lodge and started postholing. We'd be walking up a groomed run, why bother with the snowshoes sitting in the trunk? In a few brief minutes, we were dripping sweat and stopped to peel off a layer. Our audience for the day, seemingly all of the 14-year-olds in Seattle, started heckling from the lift above: "Hey hikers!"

We saw our route, but no KJ and pals. At first we plunged up left around the falls to set up our TR, but each step was deeper than it was long, so we traversed underneath the ice and wallowed up around the right side. A move or two on the steep snow and rock got us above the ice flow, where we dodged frightening snow-bombs raining from the trees to reach our top-rope anchor. Rapping down on a skinny, wet rope through hip-deep snow, over the top of a waterfall, was a butt-clenching way to start the day.

Our audience was in full thrall after the rappelling spectacle. "Whoa! What are they doing? That's insane!" The main event was yet to come, so we went about our business and got ready to climb. Eric, for all his postholing efforts, drew the first whack at the falls. He styled up the ice and reported it to be plastic and solid enough. I dodged ice chunks and the occasional drip, hoping the falls didn't shake loose any of the 8-foot yellow icicles dangling above me. Then it was my turn to flail. I could blame it on too-short leashes, third-rate ice tools, and the shy, retiring secondary points on my crampons, but it's really just piss-poor technique that sent me repeatedly falling.

We took two more laps each on Stellar Falls, as it is called. Eric offered me his tools (much nicer -- with curved shafts!), a practical belayer's decision more than anything. Never before had we received so much vocal admiration from an audience of gapers for climbing something, much less top-roping. Satisfied and thoroughly wet, we abandoned the slushifying waterfall and squished back down to the car.

Eric suggested we check out the ice at Exit 38 that someone from cc.com climbed last week during the cold snap. I thought it would all have fallen down in this springlike heat, but it was on the way home and I was eager for more. Ice climbing at Exit 38... Eric giggled at the thought. Through a clearing in the trees just above the Mt. Washington parking lot, we saw a substantial amount of white ice and headed up through the brush and blowdown. Quite a bit of the waterfall was reverting to liquid form, but there was plenty still frozen enough to climb.

Eric led (movie!) and stopped, unseen, half a ropelength up. His voice was powerless against the roar of the highway below and the gushing of the waterfall (movie!), so there was much yanking of the rope as I tried to tie in and he tried to belay simultaneously. I cleaned two screws and a ridiculous tied-off bush/twig that probably wasn't even rooted. At one point, I had one tool in the tree and one in the ice. A nice helping of dirt topped off the pitch and I was lovin' it. Unfortunately, it was getting dark, so we didn't have time for the much nicer-looking and steeper second pitch, nor for exploring the ice at Amazonia Wall...