So, we hit the trail at about 9am and it was surprisingly free of snowmobile tracks. Only a single track from a skier and his sled, days earlier, marked the snow. The beginner skiers were carrying some of the heaviest loads (suckers!), so I was able to zip ahead of everyone to the trailhead and check out a nearby unnamed waterfall to see if it would be good for ice climbing. After wandering around for a bit and sinking into snow up to my knees, I finally found a good way to approach the falls which dropped 30 feet into a canyon. It was a nice scene with the canyon being covered in snow and ice, but there wasn't really any ice worth climbing. So, I climbed down into the canyon a bit to snap a few (40) pictures, and headed back to the trailhead.

The rest of the group was still nowhere to be seen, and they didn't respond to my calls on the 2-way radio I had left with Kai. The radios were advertised to work up for up to 8 miles in optimal (unattainable) conditions, but later in the day I would determine their range to be less than a half mile in this area. Anyway, I figured what the heck, there is nothing much to do at the trailhead, I might as well head on to Chapel Falls. So I left them a note in the snow and headed on to the falls where I arrived about 30 minutes later. The falls were still very wet and didn't look that great for climbing. Bummer. I tried to radio Kai again but he was still out of range. So at this point I was about 1.8 miles from Chapel Beach, an area I really wanted to visit because I knew it would look totally different than when I was there in January, when there was no ice on Lake Superior.

I dropped off my pack at the falls, since it had some climbing gear in it, and made a run for the beach, hoping I would make it back before the rest of the group started climbing, or at the very least, before they made it back to the car and left. I left a note in the snow again and was on my way, skiing as fast as I could. I think it took me a bit over 30 minutes to get to the beach and I was greeted by a calm, but icy Lake Superior. This time, I did not run out on the ice under Chapel Rock and fall on my ass.

I wandered around on the icy beach awhile and hiked west along the cliffs a bit where there are some interesting coves, periodically wondering where the rest of my party would be. Would the kids even make it the 5 miles to the falls? What if they had to turn around? Before I knew it, an hour had passed and I decided that I had better start making my way back even though I would have loved to explore the shoreline more.

On the way back to Chapel Falls I periodically tried making radio contact and when I was about 5 minutes from the falls I was relieved to hear Kai reply back. They had only recently made it to the falls but decided that there wasn't really enough ice to climb. So, we headed back about a half mile to the Chapel Lake overlook where there was another smaller, but climbable, ice formation. I decided to head back to Chapel Falls and hike to the base to take some pictures while they setup the ropes.

Back at the ice formation, Peter, Tyler's 10 year old son, was the first to attempt the climb. Tyler lowered him over the ~30ft cliff and Peter tried to climb back up but the ice was too hard for him to dig into. This was hard American ice, not that chintzy Taiwanese stuff you see. So, we pulled him back up and sent the next victim down. When Kai was lowered down, we knew that the only way he was making it back up was by climbing because he was too heavy to pull up. So, we all crossed our fingers and hoped that he would get stuck down there so we wouldn't have to hear him talk about saunas (he's Finnish) for the entire return trip. But, he made it up and then proceeded to taunt Peter for having to get pulled up. This, of course, was totally uncalled for, you know, because I had already taunted Peter for that. Anyway, the rest of us who wanted to climb did so without much drama. I mean we did come across some terrorists who were trying to release nerve gas in the area but we foiled their plan by informing them that they would be much better off letting it loose in a big city where there are more people.

So, when some of us went to put our ski boots back on (we switched to hiking boots for climbing) we found that they were frozen and a challenge to put on. Mine were soaking wet since I had been running around in the deep snow without gaiters and I wondered if my feet would ever warm up. They did once I started moving, and this time I was loaded up with the biggest pack and heaviest gear. Note to self: use a sled next time. I still made it back to the car first, and after scrounging up some food from Tyler's pack to relieve my hunger pangs, I made a couple trips back to the group to help out others with their loads. So, we all made it back to the car at about 9:30pm and headed back to town for one of the greatest meals of all time. I was really impressed that the kids made it all that way, especially considering how much they had been rolling around in the snow and getting their clothes all cold and wet.