Leaning Tree

K-Bone, B-Rad, Scott Salzer, and myself went to climb "Leaning Tree"; an 800' WI3+ pure ice climb.  We drove from Bozeman to the ice climb and arrived at the "campsite" (pull out next to the road) at 12:00am under clear skies and a cold -9F temp.

We crawled into inadequate sleeping bags and slept untill 5:00am. We woke, brewed drinks, ate breakfast, and got ready for an adventure. We left the road at 6:30am and headed down towards the canyon following tracks of a friend who had climbed the line a week prior. We dropped down 1,000 feet through timber to the canyon rim where we got our first glimpse of the ice climb.




We dropped down into a nasty drainage which took us another 1,000 feet into the heart of the canyon. We hit the river in the narrow gorge and walked to the base of the climb, crossing the river on a sketchy little tree over the freezing neck deep river.

we racked up below the climb then proceded to climb it in 5 pitches with a 60m rope (some short pitches ending on ice ledges). Climbing with a group of 4 proved to be difficult at first but then we got in the swing of things and had a blast. The ice was really brittle with dinner plate after dinner plate, keeping the moderate ice interesting. The climb ended by climbing right through a tight ice couloir with screws and nuts for gear. We rappelled the route off v-threads and touched down in the canyon at dark where we recrossed the sketchy tree bridge and hiked the 2,000 feet back UP to the car uneventfully.











We drove back to bozeman and my head hit my pillow at 2:00am. A 5 star route very high on adventure. Cheers!