Photo Essay: Michigan Ice Fest

The first time I went ice climbing I (unintentionally) ate a lot of ice and ended up with so many bruises it led my friends and I to question whether I was anemic. However, despite the myriad of physical tolls taken, I was left feeling emotionally light as a feather — and excited for the next opportunity to climb. It was truly a unique experience to look out from the top of the ice tower at Peabody Ice Climbing in Fenton, Mich., and see the moonlit sky expanding outwards with a snowy landscape as far as the eye could see. To be fair, my eyes couldn’t see very far as I have terrible depth perception at night … but that’s beside the point.

Ice climbing immediately provided an amiable community of strangers cheering on my friends and me as we did our ascents up the tower throughout the night. They provided helpful tips and general positivity that isn’t always common among sports, especially when one is starting at an older age.

There is a big fear surrounding sports and activities when one gets older, summarized by the phrase, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” The stigma is that if you never learned it when you were a kid, you’re immediately out of chances to try it later in life. However, I’ve found that in outdoor activities in general, most practitioners always welcome people with open arms, no matter their age. I quickly got a grip on the language used to describe climbs, with each individual route being referred to as a “pitch” and the person standing at the base of the pitch keeping your rope taut is a “belayer.” The community allowed me to rapidly gain confidence in the sport, so when my boss, Will, told me about Michigan Ice Fest, I knew that I had to go and experience ice climbing on a larger scale.

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Michigan Ice Fest is the oldest ice climbing festival in the United States. It is hosted by Bill Thompson and Downwind Sports in Munising and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, where there is some of the best ice in the United States. The reason for such spectacular ice formations in a state that’s not particularly renowned for climbing is the combination of cold temperatures, lake-effect snow, waterfalls and the porous sandstone cliffs that allow groundwater to seep out to form beautiful ice falls. 

When I got to Ice Fest, I was directed by the kind people running registration to take the provided shuttle to “the Curtains.” They described this section of routes as one of the most populated areas for ice climbers of all skill levels to test out what they had learned in classes and to meet other climbers. After a short but slippery trek up the hill to the Curtains, I was met by a plethora of colorful belay parkas and helmets dotting the snowy landscape and giant ice falls from the overhanging cliff. The Curtains were aptly named, a section of overhang decorated with what can be best described as oversized icicles cascading down like drapes, just waiting to be climbed by some very daring humans. Belayers were stationed across different pitches at the Curtains keeping climbers safe and the lines for each climb moving.

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As I moved around through the Curtains, I saw a continuation of the welcoming community I had experienced my first time ice climbing. There was the automatic assumption that everyone there was a new potential friend, at least for the weekend. While traversing along the Curtains, I met two people named Meg and Matt who were waiting in line to climb, and we started sharing stories – because that’s what you do when you’re out in the woods waiting to climb frozen water with axes in hand and spikes donning your feet. 

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Meg was from the Metro Detroit area just like me, and Matt had come with his daughter from Chicago. It was Meg’s first time at Ice Fest, while Matt was a seasoned attendee of 10 years! On Meg’s route up the pitch, Matt and I cheered for her like I would for any of my close friends back home. I felt such immediate connections to everyone I met, and the fact that both Meg and Matt were totally awesome definitely helped. Unfortunately, after getting about three-fourths of the way up the pitch, Meg knocked her tooth loose with an ice climbing axe while pulling it out of the ice. She was brought down by the belayer, and Matt jumped into action with the first aid kit in his pack. Meg’s friends that came with her also came over to help and console her. I waited until she moved from the base of the pitch to an area further from the ice to go over and check on her and tell her she’s a total badass. She raised her thumb and cracked a little smile. Meg, if you’re reading this, you’re awesome and I hope your tooth is okay.

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After Meg was taken down the route by her friends, I got the chance to speak with Matt before his next climb. Matt emphasized to me how Ice Fest had changed over the 10 years he had been attending, saying that in recent years it has become more youthful. He originally started coming to Ice Fest for himself, but for the past six years he’s been coming back for his daughter who’s gotten into the sport. He mentioned that the festival’s gear raffle was also a nice incentive to keep coming back for more ice climbing, saying, “If I can walk away with an $800 pair of boots that’s nice.” Wise words. I found myself rooting for him while at the gear raffle later that night whenever a nice pair of Scarpa or La Sportiva boots were being raffled off. Matt and his daughter reminded me of my own relationship with my dad, but instead of ice climbing, our sport is strongman, a form of competitive weightlifting. Matt’s daughter was among many young people I saw along the Curtains, with people my own age or younger making up a solid quarter or so of the climbers. 

It was so inspiring to see all of these young people going out and doing such an intensive sport, and being given the opportunity and space to do it. Having the experienced belayers there helped to provide feedback to some of the climbers, and little tips along the route. One of my favorite moments was a dialogue between a belayer, Becky, and a high schooler climbing named Gus. When Gus made it to the top of the pitch he yelled out, “Alright I think I’m done. Should I come down?”

Becky said, “You can if you want,” to which Gus replied somewhat sarcastically, “What else would I do?”

“Enjoy the view.”

“Oh. Oh yeah, that’s beautiful.”

We all got quite a kick out of their back and forth, but I found myself realizing I too was wondering what else he could possibly do at the top of the pitch. I completely forgot that one of the ultimate goals of these crazy sports is to just appreciate nature from another point of view. Our hustle culture, especially at a rigorous university like the University of Michigan, focuses so much on the climb and working as hard as possible, as much as possible. Having people there offering a reminder to slow down was a welcome change. 

Though I had traveled by myself, and didn’t know anybody else at Ice Fest prior to arriving, I never felt alone the entire time I was there. There was always some activity to go do, and since we all shared the same itinerary, I saw people from the Curtains all over. Even if I was standing in line at a book signing with someone I hadn’t spoken to yet, all that meant was that now was the perfect opportunity to make a new friend. Everyone shared a gregarious attitude, and each person I met was certifiably cool. For example, the person who sat next to me on the shuttle ride back from the Curtains was a man named Bryan DeAugustine, superintendent of the Marquette school district. He has been helping out at Ice Fest since 1996. We then went on to talk about how his family goes winter surfing in the Great Lakes (something I didn’t even know was a thing until a few months ago), and he shared some of his rock climbing adventures in Red River Gorge. That’s what Ice Fest will reveal: the absolute coolest people in disguise of normal humans. Superintendent by day, extreme sports enthusiast by every other hour.

After the last scheduled shuttles to and from climbing routes came back, the next activity on the itinerary was a book and poster signing event with some of the world’s top alpinists: Conrad Anker and Barry Blanchard, as well as environmental journalist James Mills and renowned rock and ice climbing photographer Tim Banfield. Anker is a household name in climbing circles, one of the world’s top explorers and mountaineers who’s still alive. He has climbed Mount Everest three times along with an extensive list of other expeditions, and he has been climbing for over 40 years. Blanchard is a famous alpinist, most well known for his climbing in the Canadian Rockies, where he grew up and first gained a love for climbing, I felt incredibly lucky to have been able to speak with Anker and Blanchard, and my coworkers at Moosejaw, an outdoor gear shop, heard all about it. Getting the chance to speak with Banfield was enlightening as well, as his position as an outdoor adventure photographer is a dream career of mine. 

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What blew me away more than the stories all these men had was how humble they were, and their excitement to share the love of climbing with each and every person who came to speak with them. I asked Blanchard about the wildest thing he had seen at the top of a climb, and he said his group once saw tracks that couldn’t be human on a Canadian summit. The only creature they could possibly assume it to be was a wolverine. As a Michigan Wolverine, I have an automatic bias toward the animal. We then talked about how incredible the mammal is, and he told me another story about seeing a wolverine scurry away up a 30-foot ice wall, putting every ice climber in the room to shame. I just stood there thinking, I’m talking to a man who has climbed more mountains than I could possibly fathom, and I somehow managed to turn our conversation to Michigan’s mascot. The Michigan difference in action. 

Outside of our riveting mustelid discourse, Blanchard said to me that growing up in poverty in Alberta, Canada, he would look out his window every day and see the tall peaks jutting into the sky. “They called to me. The mountains are my calling,” he said. When I asked Anker what keeps him coming back to climbing, he had a flabbergasted look on his face and said, “I have to climb. If I don’t climb, I will go crazy.” The need to climb for these men is as essential as oxygen, and they are a powerful force to be in the presence of.

Near the end of the night, Blanchard presented his film “Spindrift” and then gave a talk afterward. When speaking on adventures with friends all throughout his life, he said, “Every time we didn’t die, we’d laugh and say, ‘Great, now we can do something harder,’” citing an innocent belief of personal invincibility. His resilient approach to life and utter dedication to the pursuit of the mountains can be summed up perfectly in that quote, along with the thought process of many other adventurers. Human curiosity is one of the most intense motivators I’ve witnessed and experienced in my short life to drive us to do things that could be perceived as crazy, but that feel almost essential to do at the moment in search of answers. Blanchard’s answers lay among the summits. He shared some sage advice when wrapping up the talk however, saying when he began climbing, it was all about how hard the climb was, with a youthful wish to prove himself as an expert climber. Midlife when he had access to more resources, it became about where the climb was, what far-off zeniths awaited his footsteps. Now, it is about his three climbing friends who joined on journeys in their 20s and 30s. Blanchard reminded the audience, “Don’t be shy, tell people you love them.”

Anker followed with a presentation on Sherpa culture in Nepal, and started off his talk with a guttural “AWOOOOOOOO.” That’s right, an AWOO. He got the crowd to join in his howl, and if you’ve never seen a high school auditorium packed with ice climbers howling with the man who’s virtually the face of Everest, I highly recommend it … though I don’t know if such a phenomenon will ever grace the Earth again. “That probably was not what I needed to do with my voice before I started talking, but hey we needed to get feral,” Anker said. Then we were off. Anker described the importance of Everest ascents led by indigenous Sherpas to the Nepali economy, mentioning that one expedition can feed a family for a year. The first time Anker went to Nepal was in 1988 and he said his motives going into the climb were about himself, but experiencing Nepali culture caused an internal transformation for him. Anker has since visited Nepal many more times, and has worked with the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation to establish The Khumbu Climbing Center, a vocational program and center for Indigenous people that teaches responsible climbing to increase the safety of ascents. Anker also noted a shift in Sherpa culture over the years, with the new generation of Sherpas climbing for the same reason Westerners come all the way to Everest and pay thousands to do it. They are changing the Nepali perception of the trade from a job to put food on the table to a career of incredible feats of human nature. 

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The final afterparty hosted by Gallery Coffee was the cherry on top of a perfect day. There was live music, ice climbers unwinding and, for some reason, a blowup alien on the dance floor that everyone was getting a turn dancing with. I ran into many characters from the day, including Matt and his daughter. Upon seeing me at the party, Matt exclaimed, “How are you still going? Do you do cocaine!?” In case I ever choose to run for president, I feel it’s necessary to say here that no, I had enjoyed no snow other than the crystallized water form I was taking pictures of all day. What prompted him to make that comment was that I had told him about my busy morning, getting home from a concert around 1 a.m. and then driving to Ice Fest from Metro Detroit at 5 a.m. I hadn’t realized how long my day had been until he said that to me, because all day I was caught up in the bliss of Ice Fest. I felt in every moment as though I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and that was because of the amazing people I got to meet and photograph. 

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I cannot recommend Ice Fest enough. Whether you’ve dipped your toe into ice climbing (sounds like a recipe for frostbite), are a stellar mountaineer or had never heard about it, there is a place for you at Ice Fest. With its slew of classes ranging from beginner to extreme backcountry adventures, Ice Fest makes sure that every person has the best experience possible and endless opportunities to grow. I will without a doubt be returning next year, for the draw of the gorgeous views and a community certain to warm your heart even in the coldest conditions.

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Assistant Photo Editor Grace Lahti can be reached at glahti@umich.edu.