Lot’s of good news coming out of Munising over the weekend. The recent cold temperatures are building ice FAST! Many of the seeps are fattening up and ready for some thin, delicate climbing. All of the waterfalls are still flowing due to the high amounts water in the rivers but they are forming ice and when the set up they should be fatter than any time in recent memory! It looks like the late start may mean a banner year and great ice for the festival!

Black Diamond rep Jon Jugenheimer made a trip to Grand Island on Sunday to climb the curtains on the East Channel. The bay is nowhere near frozen and a boat was required for access so this is certainly only for the adventurous but what he found was in great shape!

Jon also made it out to the Chapel Beach area and had this to say about what he saw, “…chapel and east(at least from my view from a distance) it’s looking like it will be one of the best ice years I have ever seen out there as it isn’t hit by the sun like everything from GPP [Grand Portal Point] and west is.”

In addition to Jon’s report, we’ve seen a lot of photos of rapidly forming ice.

These two photos of the curtains were taken 10 day apart.  The exciting part is not that the curtains are in (THE CURTAINS ARE IN!!!!!) but how much ice has been made in the last 10 days.  It went from nothing to something and with the cold weather in the forecast we’re looking great for Ice Fest!

Here’s a video by Ray Baker from the end of December showing a fat and flowing Potato Patch Falls.  A lot more ice has come in since this video and it won’t long with these cold temperatures until the true waterfalls are climbable.

Please use your best judgement when selecting climbs right now.  Most, if not all of the formations are thin are fragile right now.  While ice is forming fast, we are at an important stage of the season and if climbs get knocked down now they may take weeks to recover.  Please avoid the pillars and hanging walls and stick to seeps that are adhered to the rock. A little patience now will mean more and better ice in a few weeks. 

I’m sure you’ve seen people out with those sweet tubular bandanas you can wear in a multitude of fashions. It’s a hat. It’s neck warmer. It’s face mask. It’s just what you need in the varying conditions you find when climbing on the Lake Superior shore. Well, what if I told you you could get one of those cool pieces of headwear featuring the new Michigan Ice Fest logo and you could get it for FREE! That right FREE!

The first 200 people to register online for this year’s ice fest will receive their very own Michigan Ice Fest bandana for FREE!  So don’t wait to sign up because these won’t last long.

If you’ve already signed up, you’ve got one with your name on it.  If you haven’t signed up… What are you waiting for?

For the past several months we’ve been working hard to put together a guide for this year’s event.  It’s got tons of information including a schedule, presenter bios and lots tips and tricks to get the most out of Ice Fest.

In addition to having the guides available at the event, we’ll be sending them out to all of the climbing shops and gyms around the midwest to get people excited about the upcoming ice season.

We can’t wait to show this thing off to all of our friends at the fest.

If you can’t wait either you can
See the Digital Version Here.

Over the past week we’ve been blown away by how many great entries we have gotten for our first annual photo contest.  There were hundreds of photos on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with the tag #Michiganicefest2015.  If you haven’t looked through them all, I would highly recommend it.  From pizza in the hot tub to remote lakeshore climbs, these entries seemed to catch every aspect of the ice fest experience.  As great as they all were, this is a contest and we had to settle in and pick a winner.

And the winner is… shoot, this is too hard to pick.  We had a handful of favorites and just couldn’t come to a consensus. So with that, we are changing the rules.  We chose our favorites as finalists and are leaving the final choice up to you.  We’re posting all of our favorites to Facebook and letting you vote.  All you have to do is go to our Facebook page and use Facebook’s “Like” feature to select your favorite photo from our album of finalists.  We’ll leave voting open until Wednesday February 18th at 7PM.  Whichever photo has the most “likes” at that point will be our winner.

And what do you get for winning?  A sweet prize of course, this is Ice Fest after all.  We are giving away a free entry to next years event as well a free class of your choice.  In addition to this, we are throwing in a pair of Petzl lazer speed ice screws!

Thanks to everyone who participated. You entered some great images and made our job pretty tough.

Below you can see all of the finalist.  Head over to our Facebook page to vote!

 

 

We’ve seen some incredible photos from the participants at past Ice Fests and we were thinking that it’s a shame not to reward such creativity. So this year we’re introducing our first Ice Fest Photo Contest!

Here’s how it’s going to work:

1. During the weekend of Ice Fest (February 5th through the 8th) snap some sweet photos. Photos of climbing, partying, approaches, whatever as long as you feel it represents your Ice Fest experience.
2. Post your photos to social media (Facebook, Twitter or Instagram)  with the hashtag #michiganicefest2015.  You can enter as many times as you want.
3. When the event is over, all of the photos tagged with #michiganicefest2015 will be judged by a panel of Ice Fest staff. Photos will be judged based on some seriously strict guidelines.  Exposure, composition, creativity, badassness and the panels general feeling toward the photo will determine the winner. Extra consideration will be given to pictures with more likes, shares and retweets because it always pays to be social. You must attend the Ice Fest to be eligible and photos need to be taken during the event.
4. The panel will decide the winner in the week following Ice Fest and a big announcement will be made on the Michigan Ice Fest Facebook page. So you’ll have to keep an eye on the Facebook page to see if you won.

Pretty easy. It doesn’t cost you a dime and we know you’re posting all of your sweet Ice Fest shots anyway, so you might as well try and win something. “Win something?” you say.  Of course.  It wouldn’t be a Michigan Ice Fest contest without an incredible prize.  You’ve seen our raffle, right?  So what is this amazing prize?  It’s not just a prize, it’s a prize package.  The package will include a registration for the 2016 Michigan Ice Fest and a class of your choice at next years event.  On top of this already stellar prize we are throwing in gear and clothing from some of our event sponsors.  Crazy!

So when you get to Munising make sure you pull out your phone or camera and take your best shot at winning the Michigan Ice Fest 2105 photo contest!

Beers with Bill is always one of our favorite events at Ice Fest because it’s all about you… and a little about Bill… but mostly about you. Every year on Thursday night Bill puts together a slideshow made up entirely of photos submitted by Ice Fest participants. You get to see what everyone else has been up to while you enjoy a beverage or three. During the show feel free to cheer for your personal favorites!

So this is your chance to see your pictures up on the big screen. For the past few years the photos we have recieved have been awesome and we would like to continue that tradition.

Below you can upload your best ice climbing shots and Bill will put them in the slideshow. Please keep them PG13-ish and climbing oriented.