Sunny Day in Mineral Creek

Ryan and I were fired up to get out and climb after the sub-par day before and decided that a little sun and being out of a cold air sink was a more doable option. We spied some ice on the lookers left of mineral creek that fit our criteria. If you look closely on the right side in the picture below you can see two routes, we did the left hand one.

 

Some sucky crust breaking on the way up, but overall very little snow for Valdez.

 

By the time we got to where we needed crampons we had attained direct sunlight. It was glorious and made the route much more enticing. I'm not sure what it was called, probably a grade 3 and about 300ish feet long. Nice and easy for the cold temps, it wasn't plastic.

 

Ryan Coming up the last pitch into the shade. Yikes the temp dropped fast.

 

Overall it was a super fun trip to Valdez, but kind of on the lame side for climbing and skiing. The next day I couldn't bend my wrist or pinch my fingers together. Luckily for my mental state it was still below 0 and windy, otherwise I would have probably cried.