Ice - THOS

Quick report

Weather

warm, sunny

Climb Name

This House Of Sky

Ice Quality

good

Warm daytime temps. Most of the ice is sheltered from the sun so little sun effect. Many of the ice steps have accumulated snow at the base as usual for later in the season. About two steps before exiting the canyon there was a significant shell over the step which has been largely broken away now but still covering some of it. The shell would make it impossible to protect or climb securely but otherwise it was generally decent ice. A couple of the rap stations were buried in snow. One needing digging down 2-3 feet to get to the rings. One we couldn't find because its low anyway but also recently another tree fell into the canyon. A victim of the fire it has brought dirt with it and we didn't find the anchor. We uses cord on a live tree up the slope a little. I recommend not trying to use the deadfall to rap from as there seems to be more stacked above it waiting to fall. We considered removing the large fire fallen tree but it would be an involved undertaking to avoid bringing the debris down on yourself. Pic attached looking up the narrow slot at the tree. The snow around the climb is diminishing but has transported into drainages. I did note wind transport of a little snow up high but down low there was quite a bit of faceting and sugar like quality. In the cirque there are a number of options to extend THOS however the first pillar looks spicy from a distance. Pic attached. Some snow up there still also visible in the pics. Note that the walk off option used in previous years has been reported as badly choked with firefall from last Octobers wildfire.