Climb on: Winter Ice Climbing Leadership Venture
David Gold & Linda Drabik, WG'07, Ice Climbing Venture Fellows
Issue date: 3/19/07 Section: News
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The trip commenced with a harrowing drive, as participants fought the late-winter snow on the seven hour commute to Keene, in upstate New York. The final group of students left Philly after an exam and arrived at 4am Friday morning. Cold? Check. Lack of sleep? Check. Slightly disoriented? Check. It seemed that the Venture would be a great simulation of life at Wharton after all...
Undeterred by the 7am wake-up call, the group met with its three professional guides from EarthTreks, all of whom are world-class ice climbers. After the safety talk (paraphrase: there is a chance you will die or be seriously injured in the next several days) and a hearty breakfast, the climbers set out to spend eight hours in near-zero degree temperatures doing their best to scale a sheet of ice.
Ventures seem to get their share of team-activity mocking, with the most common rhetorical question, "will we have to do a trust fall?" The Ice Climbing Venture promptly put that joke to rest, as each member needed to have complete faith in the skills of his/her partner on the ground. Ice climbing entails using two ice "tools" (think really sharp, pointy axes) and crampons (transforming your boots to tiger paws) to scale the ice. The climber is attached, by a rope, to a fellow student at the bottom who is responsible for arresting the descent in the case of a fall.According to Charles Hsieh (WG'07), "You're clinging to the wall for dear life and the only thing keeping you from falling fifty feet to certain death is a Wharton student with twenty minutes of safety training - this doesn't seem like such a good idea." Jonathan Taqqu (WG'08) pitched in with his unique brand of expressing the thrill of a sudden drop off the ice, keeping all climbers and belayers alert.
Although the casual Wharton observer would view this Venture as riskier than speculating all points late in the auction, it was actually quite safe, given the same rope techniques are used for rock climbing as in non-icy locales. The sharp tools on our hands and feet added an element of suspense during a short fall. However, participants quickly became accustomed to their gear and realized that they could climb with greater confidence once they experienced a five foot rather than fifty foot fall, thanks to the attentive and competent climbing partner at the other end of the rope.
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