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March 13, 2005
"SCALING NEW HEIGHTS"
The Journal News

Janew McManus

Michael Theesfeld is planning a trip to Alaska, where he will scale a mountain of ice called the Moose's Tooth via a route called Ham and Eggs. But on a warm Saturday in early March he simply is trying to master a short frozen column on the Asbestos Wall in the Catskills.

"The Northeast is a great place to train because you deal with the cold weather but you don't have to deal with the size," said the Chester, N.J., resident.

By 9 a.m. on a Saturday in March, Rock and Snow is buzzing. People are loading cross-country skis into their cars, coming in to the store to rent ice-climbing equipment and talking about routes with the employees, all of whom seem to be avid climbers.

A family of four from Bridgewater, N.J., was being outfitted for ice-climbing gear by Angelo Urrico of Alpine Endeavors. The company keeps equipment at the store and outfitted Karen and Sandy and their two sons, 14-year-old Keith and 17-year-old Daniel, with boots, helmets, crampons and harnesses.

"Some people love it the first time, but some people it takes a little more time because there is the gear and the weather and all these other factors," Urrico said.

The colder temperatures of the Catskills make for a longer season, and just feet inside Catskill Park you can see why. Beautiful thick columns of icicles, clinging to rock formations, are frozen nearly solid.

Marty Molitoris, who runs Alpine Endeavors, has four full-time guides. Each year the colder Catskills are the main target for climbers since the Shawangunks, just outside of New Paltz and known for rock climbing, have a short ice season.

"The cliffs get so much exposure to the sun," Molitoris said.

He literally wrote the book on Catskill climbing: "Catskill Mountains, an Ice Climber's Guide," and is in Japan for the month to teach a rock-climbing course to naval officers.

On a warm day toward the end of the season, Urrico leads the Browns to a sunny south-facing cliff known as the Asbestos Wall in Kaaterskill Clove. There are already climbers carving steps into ice on both sides, and the sound of trickling water signals that the warmth is audibly taking its toll.

"The nice thing about ice climbing is, the best time to go is when it's getting warmer during the day but still cold at night," said Eric Feldbaum, who works at Eastern Mountain Sports in Nyack.

The store has photos of staffers climbing ice and rock and is linked to a climbing school. Matt Shove, an EMS ice-climbing guide, has set up Greg Horvath and Susan Yoo just a few yards ahead of Urrico's group.

For complete strangers, everyone is friendly and particularly supportive of newcomers like the Browns.

"If this is their first day they're going to be spoiled because it's so nice," said Theesfeld, 31. "It's like climbing at the beach today."

It's easy to tell the guides from their charges. First there is the equipment —the rented gear is homely compared to the bright yellow helmets and shiny ice axes. The guides, laden with ropes, all snaked up the cascading sheets of ice with the ease of an otter.

The Browns watch as Urrico unpacks their gear and prepares to free-climb the ice corner he had just staked out. Using ice screws instead of a rope for security, Urrico explains each of his steps.

"The protection is there in case the leader takes a fall," Urrico said. "In ice climbing it's screws."

He demonstrates by taking one of the hollow serrated screws and pushing it into a thinner column of ice suspended over a small cave. The end soon pops through to the other side.

Once the ropes are safely in place, Urrico again checks equipment and it is time to climb.

"I think doing the ice climbing is a good way to get into (mountaineering)," said Nyack's Erik Larsen, the medical director of STATFlight at Westchester Medical Center and part-time mountaineer. "You hone your skills and learn how to handle the ropes."

Although the sport looks pretty intense — www.neice.com has some pretty extreme pictures — it isn't a crazy, bungee-jumping-and-skydiving-with-picks kind of sport. In practice, ice climbing can be mellow.

"It's about inner peace, dealing with your own fears and self-reliance," Molitoris said. "It's not the adrenaline rush everyone talks about. There are a lot of good, translatable skills everyone takes from climbing."

As physical as it is, it's also a mental game. Climbers must gauge the ice, find a secure place for the picks and crampons. At first Keith Brown has a hard time maintaining his points in the ice, but after a few starts he is 15 feet up the drop and gaining speed.

"My friends are going to be so jealous," Daniel said as he waits to take the second route.

Urrico sets up six routes through the day, and the Browns climb until late in the afternoon. They take turns climbing and holding the ropes to secure one another, called belaying. The family had been rock climbing together and traveled to Utah and West Virginia for climbing and rafting.

Despite all that experience, this balmy Saturday in the Catskills stood out.

"We had a great day climbing," Karen Brown said.