Gibralter Wall - ice

<p>**Driving: Forest road was covered in ice nearly the whole 26km. We had all wheel drive and winter tyres but it would be better with studs. **Approach: Started with Yak Trax but switched to actual crampons for the last third. **Line chosen. We opted for the right side as it looked good and we thought maybe less ice/rock fall exposure. Maybe more sheltered belay stances. **Pitch 1 had a groove with running water right side but the ice left of it is in reasonable shape. Ended up in the cave which had a nice stance behind the pillar left of the cave and good ice for the anchor. **Second pitch was done in two pillars with a good rest ledge between them. First pillar was a stout lead above the given grade. Vertical ice with mushrooms all over it. Ordinarily it might be nice but between sun effect and chandelier it was tough. The mushrooms would break off and cut a foot loose regularly while tools could find decent ice below the sun affested ice, but would occasionally sheer. Second pillar after the rest ledge was maybe a touch less steep but ice quality was much the same. **The exposed belay after p2 led to a traverse left to keep falling ice from the belayer during p3. This should have meant a top out was possible except for terrible quality ice. Most of p3 was sun affected but reasonable, far better than p2. However close to the top out there is a concave rock slab. Part of this rock is pouring wet rock. A line of ice crossed the slab but looked horribly detached and sun beaten. We retreated just below the nasty part of the topout. **On rappel with just a cursory glance, it looked like the central line would be better yet still some degree of sun bleaching. Ymmv</p>

Weather Report

<p>Day was warm. There was a brief period of very light flurries, which transitioned into very light and fairly short lived rain. That was maybe around 2-3pm ish. We also had periods of low clouds passing through. There seems to be quite a lack of snow in the general area, so we were not too concerned as much with avi, as about the potential for falling rock or ice.</p>

Weather Conditions

Cloudy, Foggy, Warm, Wet.