With over a week of cold temperatures in Seattle and a weekend forecast with highs in the teens and twenties around Leavenworth, the possibility of elusive Northwest ice was too great not to seek it out. Kelsey and I drove to the Bridge Creek Campground out Icicle Creek on Friday night and, after deciding that the snow cover was too light to warrant an alpine objective, decided to give Hubba Hubba a try in the morning. This meant we were able to sleep 9 hours instead of about 3. Bonus.

In the morning, the view out of our tent faced straight at the climb and it was clear that there was enough ice to warrant hiking up there. It took about an hour to reach the ice. It was pretty thin and unsupported at the bottom, but looked good higher up, so we hiked to the top, set up a belay off a tree, and took turns lowering down the full 70m rope before climbing out. Kelsey put 2 laps in and I got 3 in before we needed to head down to get Kelsey back to Seattle.

The climb was surprisingly fat for mid November. There were plenty of sections that would take screws. It was pretty fun to try a few different lines, including a few bits with about a half inch of ice over rock. All in all, it was a great day and surreal to be climbing ice in November in Washington State.