-22 at Pilot Creek

Rusty Willis and I headed up Chief Joseph Hwy to climb Leaning Tree, but wussed out with the prospect of dropping into even colder temps at the bottom of the Clarks Fork Canyon. Temps were reading -15 on the road above. So we drove further to the snowmobile dropoff point. This is the Pilot Creek parking lot. It's a deep snow bushwack to the cliffs where the conditions have been very kind this year. Almost touching down completely is a very large unnamed pillar. [img]http://montanaice.com/forums/user_images/unnamedLmi.jpg[/img] [img]http://montanaice.com/forums/user_images/unnamedRbottommi.jpg[/img] We went right along th cliffs for a short walk to climb an unnamed set of flows. It was moderate 4 to the left and easy 3 to the right, half a rope-length high. There was a lot of ice which was in much higher, but the cold was too much. [img]http://montanaice.com/forums/user_images/unnamedRmi.jpg[/img] The only thing not looking good was the Sword of Damocles. Green Bugger was nice and fat, but much of the rolling ice above the first pitch was covered in snow, except a few decent curtains. [img]http://montanaice.com/forums/user_images/SwordofDamoclesmti.jpg[/img]