Climbing frozen waterfalls

[vawitt]

I had a couple of questions in my blog about my "Hangs on a Wall" image.

Below are a couple of additional photos from the climb, and an answer to the questions.

To answer some questions: yes, this is a waterfall. It was probably 100 (?) feet high (even in Illinois!) I was part of a small group down at the bottom, watching the progress. At this point, he was maybe 1/3 of the way up. I just zoomed way in...cropped further. He was perfectly safe - he was being "belayed" by another person. His parter was on the ground, holding the other end of the rope, through a special harness. If you fall (and he did lose his footing), you are kept aloft by the partner on the ground, whose harness locks down on the rope and prevents you from falling.

When he fell, he gently swung to the side, pushed off a nearby wall with his boot, reestablished himself, and kept climbing. He only lost about 3 vertical feet in the fall.

People within about 50-75 lbs of each other in weight can safely belay one another.

[mljrbg]

Val, as I said in the 365 the climbing shot is fabulous. I haven't seen the full waterfall shot before but it is incredible to see the falls frozen. Great shots. It is amazing to me the things that people can master.

I've lived here all of my life and never been to Starved Rock. It is now on my list of places to visit. Thanks.

[JulieM]

Thanks for the additional information and photos, Val. It does look like an exciting challenge...

[MOOSE]

I used to actually do this kind of thing myself, both for practice (as this fellow is doing) and for real in the Canadian Rockies. The relative weight of the participants has nothing to do with the ability to belay one's partner, as theoretically, though not always in practice, the belayer is anchored to something solid like a rock or the ice itself. When a climber takes a fall in a practice situation, more or less all he does is stretch the rope a bit. In actual circumstances, if a lead climber falls he may easily fall thirty feet or more. The force of a fall like this on the belayer is many times the climber's weight, such that if the belayer is not solidly anchored there will now be two people flying through space. Anyway, enough of this.....

[GaryK]

Val

Great shot.
I was out with a photo group last weekend for a frozen waterfall shot trip.
First set we went to had the climbers all just getting ready. I think it was a learning thing as all seemed to be newbies with one or two instructors. So lots of preamble and instructions. We had moved on to the next set before they had got off the ground.

[vawitt]

I thought I remembered someone saying they were heading out to frozen falls.

Did you ever get any climbing shots?