It was our first time on the route and what a day we had! It was dumping snow and we were the only car in the profile lot all day. We had epic slogging conditions to and from the climb with some wrong turns here and there making the approach and descent even longer than it should have been. The climb was everything we expected and considering the conditions, we were pretty happy with ourselves at the end of the day!

My dad surprised me when he and my mom came to visit my wife and I for the weekend in Boston and he showed up with his pack all ready and told me that we were going to do the black dike! He has been climbing since the 60’s and said that when he heard Bouchard had done the climb solo, he had always wanted to climb it, but it just never happened….until now. Anyway, One of many climbs throughout the years with my father, but one that both of us will never forget!

The lot at about 8:00am

Deep snow and a little off track as we started up the descent trail! Not sure if the other way would have been any less deep, but it would have been shorter!

More Slogging\

Me and pops at the base of the climb

First pitch ice. We soloed to a v thread anchor we saw above, and then began the first pitch to move things along a little bit.

Me leading the rest of pitch one

Dad above me leading pitch two….he is definitely the one with the “stones” in the family if you know what I mean! Pretty sure we didn’t do the traditional rock traverse, but instead we traversed directly left of the two pins with yellow anchors on to the thin ice you see to his left. It was a wild 20 foot, thin ice traverse into the ice runnel!

Me coming up pitch two

Me leading pitch three

The snow showers were a real joy all day long!! Never have I been dumped on like this during a climb.

topping out

Success!