Jeannie Wall: Dancing On Ice - Chasing the 'In-Nick' Climb - A Story

Frost bites the air at minus 28, the Lamar Valley glows with steam from bison herds, and we shoulder packs toward a line that might vanish tomorrow. Dancing on Ice is Jeannie Wall's love letter to Montana’s winter: Hyalite Canyon’s storied walls, Cooke City’s elusive test pieces, and the quiet codes that bind a small tribe of climbers who choose presence over comfort.

This story was originally featured in The Big Sky Journal's winter 2025 edition. If it sparks your own winter stoke, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves cold adventures, and leave a review telling us your boldest dawn patrol or the climb that changed how you see winter. Then go to our website and check out Jason Thompson's awesome ice climbing photos that went with the story.

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Story photos by @jason_thompson_photos

Read by Jeannie Wall

Audio production by Cat Coe

www. broadbeta.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to the Broad Beta Podcast. We have a special episode today. Jeannie Wall, our co-founder, reads a story that we wrote for the Big Sky Journal in its winter 2025 edition. This story is called Dancing on Ice. It's a beautiful collection of memories from ice climbing around Montana. The story has been republished on the Broad Beta website at broadbeta.com. Check it out there to see beautiful photos that were taken by Jason Thompson, a photographer based in Bozeman, Montana. Without further ado, here's Jeannie with her story.

Highlight Canyon Then And Now

Cooke City’s Wild Testpieces

Dawn Patrol To Petrified Dreams

Yellowstone Cold And Resolve

Why We Climb Ice

White-Knuckle Roads Of The 90s

Modern Gear And Warmer Winters

Inversion Luck And The Ascent

Sun, Running Water, Summit Views

SPEAKER_00 0:44

In Montana, ice climbing has a bit of a medieval cult feel. Those who belong are fiendishly devoted. Those who've never tried it wonder why anyone would fall into its grip. Hanging off frozen icicles with razor-sharp daggers that might bite more than the ice if one is not precise takes a certain twisted mind to fully enjoy. Montana's home to many of the best ice and mix climbs in the lower 48, and its neighbor to the north is only a short drive to world-class climbs and test pieces. Montana ice climbers share in the secret bonus that if you also crave cold smoke skiing, you'll always have a mountain adventure at the ready, no matter what the conditions, winter dishes out. Ice climbing is not destined to become mainstream. Maybe that is also part of the allure. It's a small tribe that embraces and respects its magic. Montana is one of the few landscapes in the Lower 48 where ice consistently forms due to its cold winters. Highlight Canyon and Bozeman boast hundreds of climbs, some of which rarely appear, but most do form each winter to open a wonderland of climbing. They attract a strange clan that migrates here from neighboring states, living old school van life in the Highlight parking lot, not exactly the epitome of modern glamping. Back in the 90s, the fun really began when the Highlight Gate closed on January 1st. A few fortunate ice climbers clever enough to own a snowmobile ruled the canyon and friends willing to be pulled for 13 miles of rugged track on skis shared in the canyon serenity. But make no mistake, there's nothing serene about being pulled on skis by a sled. I'm fortunate to live five minutes from Highlight's entrance, though I grew up in Wisconsin and had my first foray onto ice in a dank ravine that did not inspire. I got hooked on climbing ice my first real winter season here in '95. Highlight is now teeming with climbers and skiers. But those early years were not exactly what I'd call the good old days of climbing ice in our canyon. I'm happy to have today's relative plethora of partners, especially women, in modern ice climbing gear and trade for the solitude of being among a few teams of climbers in the canyon. Some of the best days in Highlight have been the busiest when a group of local friends spontaneously ends up sharing ropes, laughs, and a wall full of great climbs. Cook City, Montana, harbors some of the wildest and most stunning ice and mixed lines in the state, but their ephemeral nature requires a diehard dedication to catch them in shape. Cook is the end of the road in winter, and the sole access point is through Yellowstone National Park on the only road that the park plows. Foreboding Baronet Peak, which guards the west side of the highway and the Nordic Trail at its base, harbors some of the most technical and exciting climbs in the region, along with huge avalanches that roared on its face after big storm cycles. Living in Bozeman and climbing in Cook City also demands one embraced dawn patrol to catch a magical climbing day, and checking local avalanche conditions is mandatory. One morning we got word that Cook City's infamous petrified dreams ice climb was mostly in nick, as we say, or in ideal condition. My alarm jolted me awake at 4 45 a.m. and I painstakingly peeled myself out of bed. I poured espresso into a thermos, pulled my egg sandwich out of the fridge, popped it in the micro, wrapped it in tin foil, and after checking my gear list, I loaded the car. Rope rack, garbage bag for stashing my ski boots, skis tools, spikes, screws, draws, snacks, thermos, and enough down layers to make a polar bear jealous. Doug Lindsay and I met in the pre-dawn and carpooled toward Cook City to climb its wild and esoteric icicle. We drove in the groggy silence into the subtle hues of Yellowstone's dawn. As the sun rose over the Lamar Valley, a soft fog blanketed herds of bison, their frozen fur tips sparkling in the morning light. My stupor dissolved into the prehistoric landscape. We scouted for a coveted wolf sighting. There was still enough drive time for my climbing nerves to lie dormant. Sipping the last of my coffee, the car heater cranking, I glanced at the outside temperature. It read minus 28 degrees Fahrenheit. Each of us held our breath, pausing to absorb the reality that climbing ice at this temperature is dangerous if not impossible. Ice this cold is brittle, chattering like glass with the subtle touch of a pick. Driving toward this vast landscape before the chaos of tourists arrive is a fleeting gift, a wildness that reaches deep and wide. But we also craved the climb. We'd driven too far, woken too early to turn back now. We resolved to at least go for a little ski and started the skin up to our climb, which lies a thousand or more feet above the steaming river valley. Our blood flowed thick and slow like the water below. Wearing every layer we were careful to check each other's faces for signs of frostbite. The snow glistened as the biting cold air we tried to filter through our buffs gave clarity to the fragility of life at these temperatures. I groaned like the river below, slowly and methodically putting one ski in front of the other. I told myself it wasn't that brutally cold, but maybe, just maybe, with another hundred feet below us, we would start to feel a temperature inversion and our digits. Why do we have this esoteric and arguably bizarre passion for climbing ice? What might seem like an insane love of suffering is more about the wild places, trusted partnerships, and feeling that we are getting away with something precious and ephemeral as we dance up an icicle. There's nothing quite like dangling off an icy cliff to make you focus completely on living the present moment to its fullest. Though I immediately found the fluidity and joy of climbing ice, it took over a decade for modern gear and easy access to open my mind to the unique adventures that continued to inspire me. Back in the 90s, highlight road wasn't ploughed. Before the gate closed, we'd rally up the canyon, bouncing in the only set of car tracks available through deep snow, where passing wasn't an option. The crux of the day was not on the ice, it was the white knuckling the steering wheel and trying not to slide out of the ruts and into the river on one side or snowbank on the other. Where you might wait for hours for anyone to help try to pull you out, putting a quick end to the life of your climbing rope. The reality, we always ended up stopping to get someone else unstuck, if not requiring the service ourselves. There was camaraderie and expectation. You always stopped to help. One morning we were stopped by a Xavi Ampala blocking the road just below History Rock. A metal reflector was stuck in its engine, which was shooting out smoke and steam from an overheated radiator. They were city folk years before we called Bozeman a real city. They were apparently out for a scenic drive at 8 a.m., dressed only in city clothes, looking cold, confused, and maybe a little hungover, or more accurately, still altered. They were in the middle of a domestic argument that did not involve the immediate need to sort out how to get out of their predicament. Of course, that meant our day ended before it began. Other days, the fun was had in seeing a brand new Hummer being pulled out of the river. At least driving epics were good for a laugh. These days the road is plowed impeccably and the gear is light years from the options available even in the early aughts. Tools are lighter and leashless, gloves are better fitting, and ice screws are easy to place, all of which allows you to climb longer and harder routes without freezing your extremities. In the last few years, even the temperatures feel warmer. As the gear gets better, the climbs get harder, and the list of new adventures in our small canyon surprisingly continues to grow. The freeze thaws that happen more often now allow for more ice to form, and the modern gear creates opportunities for lines that once proved impossible to be climbed multiple times a season. Highlight now attracts climbers from all over the U.S. as a new list of ascents and more technically difficult mixed routes, employing ice and rock climbing techniques in gear continues to expand. A good thaw was far from our thoughts that brutal morning in Cook City, however. But luck held out, and sure enough, a few hundred feet off the valley floor, we skinned into the relative warmth of an inversion. Finally stopping in the sun, peeling off the extra layers and stress that the Arctic temperatures imposed, we smiled with the realization that our little ski hike would turn into a chance to climb petrified dreams after all. We stashed our skis and boots as the approach got steep and posed hold in our climbing boots to the base of a stunningly huge and daunting ice flow. Leaving the petrified and going after our dream, we swapped leads and witnessed the crazy reality that the sun's warmth, even in these temperatures, produced actual running water over the ice, dousing us at each ballet. We delicately danced up this rarely formed climb to a view of the Lamar Valley and the deeply satisfying wildness of place and passion.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Thanks for listening to the Broad Beta Podcast. Hey, if you liked what you heard today, check out Jeannie's other story on the podcast. It was published in November of 2021. It's called Trust Your Instincts, a Three Person Female Ascent of L Cap. There are also two other parts to this story written by Leslie Gains Germain and I'm Jude Samuelson. For more great content, check us out online at broadbata.com. Music in today's episode was my Holizna Radio and sourced from Freemusicarchive.org.