Tuesday, February 21, 2012

The Benefit Of A Cold Winter

Luckily for this ice climber, it’s been a very cold winter in the French Alps. He has been waiting for 10 years for this waterfall to freeze. A few days ago, he made the first ascent of Oule Falls in Crolls, France. Although, from the description below, it wasn’t frozen too solidly.

ice climbingThis huge pillar of ice is in reality a huge shell, a thin hollow pipe if you will, through which the waterfall continues to flow at an impressive rate. This explains the deep, muffled, and erratic sound of flowing water that has been getting consistently louder. Indeed, this section of dark ice turns out to be a thin layer of translucent ice no more than 1 cm thick, through which I can see both the flowing water and the rock behind it!”

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