Franklin Falls Ice Climbing

On Monday January 15th 2024, my ice climbing friend Tyler and I climbed at Franklin Falls at the end of a cold spell in Washington.

To access the falls, we parked in the lower lot at Summit West, walked under the highway and down Forest Road (FR) 5800 until the double 180 degree bends. From the second bend, we took the normal snowshoe trail to the falls. This path is significantly shorter than parking at Exit 47.

In the morning when we got there, the pool at the base of the flows was barely frozen over, but we stepped lightly across to the climber's left side of the falls. From there we scouted the ice and dropped packs, and I scrambled around further left under the westbound part of the highway to the top. I setup an anchor off of a large tree set back from the cliff and extended the master-point over the edge with an 11mm static rope. I rapped back to the ground and we started climbing!

The sun quickly came out, but it was still below freezing, so our line went as a full water-ice climb. Roughly WI3, which is what Mountain Project gives it: https://www.mountainproject.com/route/125610760/left-flow.

After we each climbed it twice, a party who had setup a top rope on the other side of the falls offered to switch ropes, so we climbed Erebus WI3 M4. For me this was one of the most interesting pitches of mixed ice I've ever done. The proper climbing started on some thin ice covered flat edges, less than 10mm deep, then up some moderate couple inch thick ice to a balancey mixed traverse and lip pull, and finished up a 4+ in diameter free-hanging icicle.

Tyler and I had been practicing drytooling at Wayne's World and Tiger Mountain all fall, so it was rewarding to both cleanly top-rope a mixed route in these conditions.

I'm happy that we got to ice climb in Washington's lowlands, it's rare that it gets cold enough for long enough for full water ice climbs like this to form. I hope we get more next year!