Perched on an Icy Edge

The beautiful, fast-flowing waterfalls of the mountain regions take on a completely different appearance when the chill of winter comes blowing.

If the temperature is cold enough, the falling waters freeze to create a kaleidoscopic menagerie of ledges, platforms, stalagmites and stalactites that take your breath away.

Of course, the opportunity to seek out frozen waterfall sculpture in the Smokies and adjacent mountain ranges is dependent on frigid weather.

According to the National Park Service, mountain winters are generally moderate, with the possibility of temperatures well below zero at higher elevations.

It is those extremes that make for the best opportunity to enjoy iced waterfalls.

Karsten Delap, head of alpine programs and a guide at Fox Mountain Guides and Climbing School in Pisgah Forest, North Carolina, says one of the fascinating things about climbing a frozen waterfall is it changes hour to hour and day to day.

“You could go to the same ice climb every year and it is never the same” due to the uniqueness of the ice buildup, the temperature, and the wind and water flow that sculpted the ice.

“It’s a medium that changes over minutes and hours, not like rock climbing. Ice literally can change in minutes.”

The gear required differs from standard rock climbing as well. Traditional gear includes climbing boots with crampons (metal spikes for digging into the ice), an ice axe and ice screws.

Delap said anyone wanting to tackle a vertical hike up a frozen waterfall should “hire somebody who knows how to do it” in order to safely complete the adventure.

However, he said experience in rock climbing is not required because some of the basic concepts are different.

“I’ve had people that have never been rock climbing ”enjoy a day climbing ice, he said.

With rock climbing, you learn the story of the rock, identifying features that you can capitalize on to go ever higher. The next time you visit that rock, those features—shelves, crevices, cracks, hand holds—will all still be there, and previous climbers may have left wedges in the crevices you can access.

None of that is possible with ice climbing in the Southern Appalachians because of changing temperatures.

As a result, every single ascent on ice differs from those before.

However, the structure of the ice means climbers punch in holes for stability with an ice axe. You do not have to go looking for existing cracks or crevices.

“There’s a hole anywhere you want to make it,” Delap said.

Delap said the best ice climbing opportunities exist with frigid temperatures in Transylvania County and in the Black Mountain range of Yancey County, both located in North Carolina.

Mountain Project, a website dedicated to identifying exhilarating climbs of all variety, says “North Carolina’s Black Mountain range probably holds the best alpine snow and ice routes in the Southeast.”

The range, which includes four of the tallest mountains east of the Rockies, offer winter climbers huge routes with 3,000-foot-plus elevation changes, one- to four-hour approaches (and descents), humbling bushwhacking,” and thousands of feet “of everything from steep snow to technical ice,” Mountain Project notes.

Transylvania County, known as the land of waterfalls, boasts more than 250 waterfalls, with many accessible on or off of U.S. 64.

Those falls are basically in Delap’s backyard, and, weather permitting, it offers some of the most easily accessible frozen waterfall opportunities.

The payoff comes as the climber experiences a challenge that is unique, he said.

“It’s almost like a form of meditation, especially when you get into harder ice climbing,” Delap said. Ice climbers are hyper-focused, he said, while also exhilarating in the simple “thing of climbing a frozen icicle.”