New Route in the Madison Range

On tuesday Gregg and I left the Indian Creek trailhead south of Cameron and hiked into the Taylor-Hilgards. We hiked up the trail for about 3 miles and Gregg spotted a nice ice climb above and left of the trail in a prominent cliff. We crossed the creek and headed up a trench-like gully to the base in about 20 minutes from the trail (allow a little over 2 hours from the car). The climb consisted of 4 teirs and we climbed the route in two pitches. The first pitch was 45 meters of WI3 to a perfect belay cave on the left. The next pitch was steeper (WI3+) and 50 meters got us to a tree above the climb. We only had one 70 meter rope so we did three rappels. First, we rapped from the tree to the middle of the 2nd pitch. Then we did 2 v-thread rappels back to the base. Even with 2 ropes one would need to v-thread. We both agree this was a really quality and fun route and it deserves to be climbed. The road to the trailhead was in good condition with the exception of a small drift right before the trailhead, we made it in a subaru without incident. [img]http://montanaice.com/forums/user_images/ViewFromTrail.jpg[/img] [img]http://montanaice.com/forums/user_images/ApproachingTheClimb.jpg[/img] [img]http://montanaice.com/forums/user_images/ViewFromBase.jpg[/img] [img]http://montanaice.com/forums/user_images/GreggLeadingFirstPitch.jpg[/img]