What’s the fastest way to get across a frozen lake with a heavy ice climbing pack? Gabe Rogel shows us how it’s done with his Speed Approaching technique. It’s quite sketchy if you ask me.

Surprisingly enough, Gabe didn’t eat it and we got to swing some tools. We originally planned on climbing a route simply called “The Gully” along with my girlfriend Katie and Gabe’s wife Sarah, but when we got a good view of the route it looked as if the bottom of the climb was gone. We checked out another route in the area called Golden Tiers but neither of us were feeling up to the scary curtain that loomed at the top of the first pitch. So in the spirit of hiking with heavy packs, we decided to do some exploring up one of the drainages while the girls hiked around the lake in the beautiful sun.

A few of the times that I’ve been on the Tiers I thought I spotted what looked like some ice not far up a drainage leading to Ross lake. So we thought we see if there was anything up there and to our pleasant surprise we found the ice and it wasn’t half bad! So a few hours of casual climbing on moderate ice in the sun, how awesome is that! It was the perfect casual weekend of ice climbing (isn’t that an oxymoron, casual ice climbing?).

On another note, we stayed at a bed and breakfast right near the trailhead which is owned by Katie’s mom Carolyn. If you’re ever planning on staying in the super quirky but fun town of Dubois, you owe it to yourself to check out the Jakey’s Fork Homestead B&B.