Trip Report

By Alexander Kwapis

2018 Michigan Ice Festival

Nestled on the edge of Lake Superior’s frozen south coast, surrounded by cliffs and foothills blanketed in snow is the home of Michigan’s premier outdoor ice climbing. The nearby city of Munising, which hosts the yearly ice festival, sits at the edge of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (@picturedrocksnps) and the giant Hiawatha National Forest. After my trip, as I told friends and strangers alike, I realized that many people don’t even know what ice climbing is. So here is a quick explanation. Ice climbing is a sport where an individual or small team use a variety of gear such as ropes, ice axes, and crampons ( basically daggers on your boots) to climb their way up frozen waterfalls and ice walls just so they can then repel back down and repeat as they wish.

The Michigan Ice Climbing Festival (@michiganicefest) is the largest festival of its kind. Climbers travel from all over the world, including a far as India. This year the Festival ran five days in the middle of February. During the day the fest is a great place to get outside and learn to ice climb on naturally occurring ice walls and frozen waterfalls, as I did, or hone your current ice climbing skills with guides and instructors. Before my class I visited several climbing routes with names like Dryer Hose, the Curtains, and the Amphitheater, were ice climbers of a variety of skill levels were making their way up the ice.

Over twenty five well known climbing gear and clothing manufacturers, such as the festival’s title sponsor Black Diamond (@blackdiamond), abound at this event. You can check out their latest products, chat up their reps, or demo gear for about $50 a day. You can literally demo everything from harnesses, ice axes, boots to jackets, gloves and more.

Welcome to the Space Station

If you are lucky, as I was, you could also hang out with the good people at Mountain Hardware (@mountainhardwear) in their 15 person Space Station Domed warming hut. Get toasty next to the fireplace, have some hot chocolate , and enjoy some great convos with fellow climbers. If you are feeling peckish you can head down to the Curtains demo climbing area for a RedBull (@redbull) and a kielbasa from Mountain Hardware as well.

New this year with admission to the festival are free courses such as yoga for climbers and Belay Station Transition And Multipitch training. Paid half and full day classes range from Into To Ice, to Rigging For Rescues And Photography, to A Backcountry Adventure training. There are even women taught all women courses for a variety of experience levels.

I took the full day Light And Fast course which was instructed by two great alpinist; Nate Smith and Ben Erdmann. I learned how to properly pack our bag for speed and peppered throughout the course were loads of little tips and tricks these two seasoned climbers have learned over the years. After a fourth five minute ride on a Kawasaki four track machine. Nate and Ben had us hike into a route called the Potato Patch which consisted of wall ice climbing and a frozen waterfall column with a moving core. We had some practical crampon training, ice screw demonstrations and a variety of gear and anchoring conversations. It was a blast and really lit a fire under me to learn more about ice climbing.

Besides for lots of classes and demo climbing during the day the fest boasts a great evening program as well. The festival brings well known sponsored athletes to present after the sun sets. World Climbing Champion Sasha Digiulian (@sashadigiulian) was one of the big names brought in this year. She showed her journey in a RedBull sponsored video that documented her progression as she learned to ice climb in the area with the amazing Angela Vanwiemeersch (@angela_vanwiemeersch).

If you are a fanboy you can wait in line for signatures from these fine climbers after their presentations. I got a poster that Freddie a Wilkinon (@freddiewilkinson) autographed after he spoke on Friday about his upcoming article in National Geographic. If you are feeling social you can rub shoulders with great climbers while getting a free beer during the after parties each night from one of the local breweries. If that’s not your style you can have a beer and a dip in a hot tub after a long day in the cold and hang out with other sore muscled fellow climbers. This was my tactic and I shared a cold beer and a soak with Jesse Huey, one of the sponsored athletes that presented Friday night.

This is my take away from the Festival. No matter if you have Climbed Mt. Everest, as one of my classmates In the Light And Fast Alpinism class had, or you have never held an ice axe in your life this Ice Festival is a lot of fun and very inspirational.

#climbing #iceclimbing #Michigan