Ice Climbing in Camden hills
Camden Maine is well known for its celebratory take on winter. Home to the Camden Snowbowl, this tiny town has a vibrant ski community, both downhill and cross country alike. Camden Hills State Park is full of trails that provide enough outdoor entrainment for us all, and you can skate your heart out on the local lakes. To top it all off Camden hosts the International Toboggan Championships, and yes, it’s as fun as it sounds. A weekend-long celebration through downtown and over to the Snowbowl itself draws people from all over the country to try their hand at a speedy trip down the toboggan shoot on homemade sleds.
Tucked into a few corners of Camden Hills lays another take on celebrating all that winter has to offer, climbing ice. Finding trickles of frozen water that flows over the cliffs and crags of the park a group of climbers enjoy a very different kind of winter playground. Ice climbing developed in a similar way as rock climbing, it was a means to the summit of big mountains.
Mountaineers developed tools and movement styles to climb frozen ice pillars that led them to summits and back down again. Over the decades, with more attention given to the sport and the design of technical ice gear, ice climbing has come along way. Combined with the American Mountain Guide Association’s hard work of setting up a system of education to train and mentor guides, ice climbing has almost earned the term “popular”.
Camden offers beginner-friendly climbing with short flows of varying degrees of steepness to steep overhanging curtains of icicles. No matter your climbing goals, there’s ice for everyone’s ability. You can work with a certified guide, who will provide not only the climbing gear but knowledge of the park to customize your adventure. Each year the routes of ice to be climbed form in different ways, depending on the amount of precipitation and temps, and each season provides a slightly new climb, a new challenge.
Ice on the coast of Maine can be a fickle thing. The Atlantic, with her ebb and flow of moisture, can make for unpredictable temperatures causing the ice flows (and ski conditions) to change with it. No matter the weather the midcoast community continues on with its’ celebrations, winter can be long if you don’t and the weather’s bound to change anyhow. It’s about celebrating a sense of adventure, challenges that widen our perception and expanding our comfort zones by getting outside. We’re grateful for a community that values making space for celebrations.
You by no means need to be a self identified climber to try your hand at a day of guided ice climbing. Have you ever been out on a hiking trail in Maine and passed by a party with neon ropes, ice picks attached to there backpacks and mile wide grins, and wonder what they might be up too? Well, pack a thermos of your favorite hot beverage, multiple pairs of gloves and the best attitude you can muster and join us for a day of winter celebration and climbing in Camden Hills.
Happy climbing,
