"What does it feel like?" My climbing partner asked. I paused, pondering the all important question of whether to reach for my chimichanga or my beer. Am I hungrier or thirstier? I think the beer won, but I’m not sure. "That feeling, I mean, when you’re aid climbing and you get into the zone, what does it feel like? Can you just turn it on?" Well, I said, trying to think back to my last aid climb but unable to get past the last two days of wonderful, horrifying, miserable, incredible, perfect days of ice climbing. Fortunately, the days on the ice offered just the reminder that I needed. Both of what it means to fully immerse oneself into climbing and what it means to be alive, nerve endings showing for all the world to touch.

I thought about the weekend, really a Friday and Saturday, not even a proper weekend at all. It began early Friday morning, when my roommate Martin and I picked up our third partner and headed up to do the Black Dike, a classic line on Cannon cliff in New Hampshire. After some gear negotiating and a couple cups of coffee we arrived at the parking lot and shouldered our packs. The day was trying to decide whether it was going to snow or clear up; we were right on the northern edge of a storm front which was pounding New England and New York. The sun was almost peaking through the clouds as we headed up the snow and talus approach to the dark, foreboding corner with a thin trickle of ice that is the Dike.

After some negotiating, pitch 1 was my lead. There were two parties in front of us, one on our route and one on an adjacent route called Fafnir that shares the first pitch. So we had to hustle a little and I cruised up the first belay, placing only one screw in low angle, easy terrain. Some quick negotiating and my partners joined me. Steve was the rope gun of the group so he took off on the second pitch, which begins with the famous rock traverse. A couple ice placements, a fixed pin, a fixed nut, chaos. Steve had done the route maybe four times and he still paused a moment, contemplating the problem before him. He reached up, placed the blade of the right tool in this thin vertical crack cammed it a little and reached over to a sidepull hold with his left hand. The rock was covered in verglas. DOH! But what else is there? Nothing really. Kind of like life, not an ideal situation, but you’ve got to go on it, to risk a little to get to the next step, where you might have to risk a little more. Anyway, he was only looking at a ten foot pendulum right back down onto the belay, where his crampons would probably end up embedding themselves in my forehead. I was rooting for him to get it.

Shuffle, shuffle, he moves his feet. Ever so gently Steve releases the right tool from its hold on in crack and hooks it over this block, the top of which is covered in snow. He oozes onto the right tool, gracefully tosses the left tool from where it is dangling from his left hand and gets a marginal stick in a blob of ice. Shuffle, Shuffle. More oozing as he weights the left tool and releases the right tool. THWACK. Nothing sounds so good as a bomber pick placement. We all simultaneously let out the breath that we’ve been holding throughout this entire processes. THWACK. As quickly as it began it is over and he is cruising up some easier terrain on relatively good ice, Phew.

Aid climbing is characterized by long periods of boredom and drudgery punctuated by short periods of sheer terror. The Dike was that way this day and we sat back belaying Steve and chatting. "I’m having a NOLS moment," I cackled as Martin showed me some obscure knot technique that allowed him to move around the belay safely. "Errr, Ed, not right now okay?" Steve was a little gripped, and we shut up and waited. I guess this is the next step and the little more part. Some indistinguishable time later he called off belay and I headed up the pitch, trying to remember the moves as he did them and feel half as secure. I succeeded and soon joined Steve at the second belay, enjoying the view across the valley at the long ridgeline covered in snow. On a clear day, that view goes all the way to the presidential mountains. But the sun lost and this day turned out not-so-clear as the snow rolled in. The third pitch, the snow started harder and we topped out, with the obligatory frozen turf placements at the end. THWUD, THWUD.

We rapped down in a real live snowstorm. "Time to get off, I think, okay, now it’s really time to go." It was turning out to be a FULL VALUE DAY. We accelerated the rapping and descent as much as possible and without epic were soon at the car and driving home, snow melting off our clothes and gear and hair with the heat of the car. I descended into a mellow contented state that only the mix of hard climbing and fear and success brings.

"I guess you can turn it on…" I told another partner on another day over great Mexican food. "It’s kind of like you agree with yourself to a new state of being, where the things that matter most are the very micro, like whether placements are good and anchors safe; and the very macro, like the meaning of life or future career goals. Everything else, all the noise and distractions of life’s existence, get stripped away and left at the base of the climb. I told him the story of starting up Zodiac, my second El Cap route:

"Pretty soon everyone at the base was watching me and I realized that there was nothing to do but head up. I looked around. ‘So you’re all waiting for me to head up this manky A2 rivet ladder, is that it?’ Nods all around. Shrug, ‘okay let’s do it.’

"And so it began. Interestingly, I can almost remember hearing a switch flip in my mind with that shrug. As if I was resolving to a new plateau of pain and pleasure and fear and exhilaration. Achieving a new wall rationality – one of the things I love most about doing walls is the pathway to that new state of consciousness. Not better or worse than the norm, just different, and peaceful."

I finished the story and thought about the day of ice climbing, thinking I’d gotten to that plateau twice that weekend. Friday, the Dike, Saturday Smuggler’s Notch. The ruminations of El Cap and the day of ice melded together the way they do in a dream, and I remembered the second day of the weekend, and remembered another shrug in another place.

Saturday morning dawned with a snowstorm and I was sore, sore, all over. I looked out the window and called my partner, Chris Spaulding. We both had the itch bad and gave up what we knew would be an incredible day of skiing for an unknown day climbing. Gas, coffee, pop tars, cold pizza, fuel for the hungry climber. Soon we arrived at the parking lot where the friendly attendant saw our ice gear and warned us of avalanche danger in the gulch. Not the way you want to start a day…

We walked up the snow covered road for an hour or so, gandered at our intended climb and realized that it was nowhere near in, and headed off to do something else. That something else required an hour of postholing in our snowshoes to get to the base. After some negotiating, we got the belay set up at the base and Chris headed up the first pitch. "How is it up there?" THWAAA. No thwacks. That sucks. "The ice is really bad, it alternates between halfway consolidated snow and a layer of bad ice." That really sucks dude, glad its not me, hee, hee. THWAAA, THWAAA. Soon Chris called off belay and I headed up to follow what turned out to be a nothing short of terrifying pitch. "Great lead dude!" The obligatory compliments. The belay was two pounded snargs. What the fu*k is a snarg? Dr. Seuss would be proud.

Chris handed me the rack and I got organized, looked around and up, and shrugged. "Okay, let’s do it." I started up and over a short ice step to the first section of vertical ice. Okay screw. The vertical section was awesome, and I was stemming like a gymnast as I pulled over the bulge and onto lower angle terrain. I placed a screw: spin, good, spin, good, spin, good, spin, sh*t, air. I tied it off. That is absolutely worthless. I thought about joking down to Chris about how bad the protection on this climb was, but figured that it would scare me too much to think about it so I moved up to the slab, which turned out to be more of the crap ice that characterized the bottom of the route. THWAAA, THWAAA. Yuck. "How is the ice up there," Chris asks. Indistinguishable cursing on my part. "Do you think it’s going to get better?" More curses. To avoid negotiating the crappy ice I traversed right to the base of what looked like some better placements. I gingerly moved up. Placed another screw. Crap, worthless. A few more moves and I slung an icicle about four inches in diameter. An icicle? Yeah right. Don’t fall I begin telling myself, ‘cause you’ll be going for the big ride.

Left of the silly icicle placement I start moving up and left very deliberately. Place, place. Kick, kick, never less than three points on the ice, all of which are lousy but together might be reasonable? It’s a balancing act worthy of the gymnast that was stemming around below. I start to get really scared and tired. "Dude, I am gripped up here." Indistinguishable words of encouragement from below. I manage to complete the traverse left and pull over a bulge to the base of the second vertical section of the route. Here the ice gets better and I get a reasonable screw in. Phew. I am really tired, but there is no way off but up. A couple placements and the pillar starts overhanging ever so slightly at the top. Oh, Lord, I start sending up missives, help me out of this jam I seem to have gotten myself into. Soon I’ve got a pick placed far right, one far left, and I’m back into the stemming mode to try to keep from pitching over backwards into the bright white abyss. I stand up, place the right tool in some reasonable ice. THWAAA. K. Not ideal, but okay I guess. Left tool. THWAAA. K. Sh*t, I think. Please Lord, a little help here. My feet start skating out. It’s now or never…I let go with the feet and do a sort of pull up sort of slide on the mediocre tool placements. What does gore tex sound like when its sliding on vertical ice? Not good, I discovered. I manage to get my knees to my elbows. PLUNK, PLUNCK. I get my feet on top of the pillar. I move my tools up and stand up. Phew. I place a great screw and feel a happiness reserved for IPOs and great sex.

Okay, Diff, 50 feet to go, I start encouraging myself. I am so tired, my arms feel like they are going to fall off. To protect the rest of the climb I have one good screw and one that somehow managed to freeze its core, making it unplaceable. I lean in and softly hit my helmet against the ice, willing myself some energy from some reserve that I can’t seem to get at. I exhale slowly and contemplate my predicament. There is really no way off but up and I need to get off before I pump out and bonk entirely. Another vertical section that decides it will overhang a little again at the end. Another great screw. More missives to God, who I am banking on has plans for me beyond today. 35 feet to go. Low angle. No screws. Bad ice. Why is this fun again? I wander around choosing a line that follows the best ice. 10 feet to go. I start talking to myself non-stop, looking at a 70 foot fall if the screw below me holds, the odds of which I put at 2 to 1 against. Longer if it fails. C’mon, I say in this silly Virginia accent. More missives. Five placements. The belay is a tree…I reach back and clip my daisy chain. FU*K YEAH. YEE-HAW. Primal screams. Absolute exhilaration of a genre that can not be described. More Screams. I ascend into a place that is as close to pure, undiluted happiness imaginable.

I call off belay and bring Chris up. As he seconds the pitch the sun sets and I start to get really cold. He gets up, I get out my super warm jacket, drink some water and eat a Clif bar. Warmth and life come flooding back into my body as if they were contained by some internal dam that I’ve managed to punch through, a reverse little Dutch boy. We set up the repel and I head down into the deepening gloom, finding the intermediate rap anchor just as it gets too dark to see. Out comes my headlamp, and I marvel at how beautiful the ice seems in the dark illuminated by the single beam of light. As if the ice flow has a fixed beauty that, when it can’t show off in the sun, is concentrated into a small, bright circle.

Two more rappels and Chris and I are on the ground. We sort gear, get our snowshoes out and glissade down the slope to the road below. As we finish the last portion of our descent in the dark I think about how lucky I am to get to finish such an incredible day with a great snowshoe. As we are walking back to the car the moon rises over the ridge behind us, bright and full. It casts moonshadows on our tired forms as we walk weightless back to the car.