Area Profile
Ice Climbing in Cody
The Cold Corner of Wyoming
The small town of Cody in the northwest corner of Wyoming is one of the last towns you pass on the way into Yellowstone National Park’s east entrance. But if you’re an ice climber, it will be your final destination as it has countless world-class ice routes mostly found along the South Fork of the Shoshone River. The town is named after Buffalo Bill Cody and signs of cowboy culture can be seen throughout.
Cody has the highest concentration of ice in the lower 48 states with many of the routes being monster multi-pitch lines. Unlike the Canadian Rockies where you step out of your car into deep snow with lodge pole pines, in Cody, you walk past cactus and sagebrush.
It was back in January of 1985 that Kurt Cozzens looked out the window of a Turbo Cessna 182 and looked at the many ice routes he had pioneered over the previous years. His partner was flying the plane too low when it hit some trees on a ridge and crashed into the forest, but neither of them were injured. They were stranded in the woods and no one knew where they were flying that day. At nearly 3,000 metres of elevation, they didn’t have very warm clothes on and knew they had to start moving. A day later, nearly frozen to death, they reached a road and waved down a car.
The South Fork climbing area is less than 30 minutes from town and has hundreds of pitches, some only a few minutes from the road. Cozzens began developing the area about six years before the plane crash. He would bring his younger brother and friends along with him to explore the mountain sides. The early classics were Moonrise WI5, the 200-metre Main Vein WI3, the 300-metre Broken Hearts WI5
and the 150-metre High on Boulder WI4.
Despite the quality of the routes, Cozzens couldn’t lure travelling climbers to the area. So, in 1984, he organized the first-ever ice climbing festival in North America. They camped at Deer Creek campground and climbed new routes. Cozzens teamed up with Doug Bikholtz to make the first ascent of the 300-metre Mean Green, using bird beaks and tap-in ice screws.
Eventually the reputation of the area spread and climbers such as Doug Chabot, Todd Skinner and Alex Lowe made their way to climb their own new routes. One of the leading route developers of the area these days is Aaron Mulkey, who used Cozznes’ knowledge of the area to help him climb nearly 100 new routes, including the following which reach up to 200 metres: Wyoming Wave WI3, Ro Shambo WI5, Hell’s Angel WI5 and The Testament WI6. There are nearly 500 routes in the area as of last year. Some of the country’s hardest routes are in Cody, including Barely Legal WI7 M8, Long Neck Bottle WI7 and Alex Lowe’s Mean Streak WI7 M7.
In 2017, Mulkey established a number of new routes, including Light Before Fire M7,
which was named after Hayden Kennedy. “I didn’t know Hayden super well, but the moments I had with him made an impact,” said Mulkey. “Doug and I only know one way to cope with loss and that was to just get into the mountains and immerse ourselves.” Mulkey then went on to climb and establish The Unicorn M7 WI5 which “is a show-stopper and although it will rarely form I believe people will get a full value experience on this route.” Mulkey continued his new routing with Fantasy Factory M9 WI5, which is tucked deep in the slot canyons of the Deer Creek drainage.
“On March 3, Doug Shepherd, Justin Keeler and I set our sights on a new route I had scoped out a few weeks earlier,” said Mulkey. “To our surprise it ended up being bigger and better than we could have imagined. Every pitch was unique and engaging. We kept thinking it was going to end, but it just kept going. Clean Coal M7R was an unexpected surprise ending for the season and was one of those routes that took a couple of days to get over the high.”
Much like his mentor Cozzens, Mulkey is continuing to push the limits and find remote new routes. “I love chasing new routes – it’s really the main thing that keeps me going,” he said. “The unknown factor
is probably what I like the most. It’s hard to get worked up over a route or sandbagged when you have no idea what you’re going to get into.
“The rock here in the South Fork is much like kitty litter, so bolts are needed for many of the new mixed routes I’m doing. In some cases it takes multiple days to put these routes up. You hike in a couple miles, then climb a few pitches and gain a few thousand feet of elevation and then you get to your project. You really have to commit to the time and energy it takes to get these routes put up. There is a sick love/hate relationship with the whole process, but once I send the route all the suffering is forgotten. Then to see other people go and climb the routes I have put up is perhaps even more fulfilling.”
Cody is one of the best places to ice climb in North America with a wilderness Wild West vibe, big ice and folks who survive plane crashes only to ice climb another day.
Opposite and far right: Marcus Donaldson climbing Superfly, M8 behind Ramshorn in Pilot Creek, Wyo.
Right: Erik Welborn climbing an unnamed, three-pitch, WI4 route beside High on Boulder in Cody, Wyo.
Below: The Cody approach