Boyana Icefall

Yesterday a former student of mine, Will Stecher, traveled to Sofia for a visit during his winter break.  Two years ago, he and I headed to Mt. Baldy in California for our first ever mountaineering experience.  Today, we continued that tradition as we hiked up to Boyana Waterfall, which you may remember from an earlier post on the blog.  If not, scroll down the sidebar to the "Labels" section and click on "Boyana."  It looked quite different today:

When we arrived in Boyana, we asked for directions to the trailhead and received some skeptical looks, followed by dissuasion.  One person placed his hand on his chest, indicating that the snow was that high and we shouldn't try.  I reassured him we had the necessary gear, and he pointed us on.  When we got there, we were relieved to see a set of tracks leading the way, and snow that was only a couple feet deep.

After about two hours of hiking, we arrived at the waterfall, where there were a group of people preparing for some ice climbing.

Will and I were content with staying at the bottom (well, at least I was).

Will inside a little cavern behind the waterfall, where the following picture was also taken.

The wall behind Will in the picture above is basically the other side of where this climber is attached.

As we were leaving, Will and I wondered where we'd use our crampons again.  Not sure yet, but I hope it will be just as spectacular.