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| The magical Sundial casting its long shadow. |
During the 1980's the city of Moscow was a forbidding enviroment. Sure it was physically cold, but more importantly, "Stalin was convinced the World Was II victory over the Nazis demonstrated the unshakability of the Soviet state" and he "deepened the brutal, closed system he had perfected...creating the perpetual struggle against 'enemies of the people' and 'spies'." The CIA during the time was still new to the game of espionage; and with the unforgiving environment that was the capital of the USSR and the brutal KGB roaming the streets carrying out the Stalin purges, intelligence was quite literally nonexistent.
How was it then that during this time the most effective spy in American history, "The Billion Dollar Spy", came to pass? The praise goes primarily to the actual spy, Adolf Tolkachev, but a portion I believe is due to the CIA. Through persistence during their years of attempts of recruitments and operations in Moscow, they picked up on little nuances about the city. One thing they realized was that "KGB surveillance teams almost always followed a car from behind. They rarely pulled alongside. It was possible for a car carrying a CIA officer to slip around a corner or two, momentarily out of view of the KGB. In that brief interval, the CIA case officer could jump out of the car and disappear. At the same time, the Jack-in-the-Box would spring erect, a pop-up that looked, in outline, like the head and torso of the case officer who had just jumped out."1
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| The Jack-in-the-Box. credit: http://www.gizmodo.com.au |
Using these skills learned from their tenure in Moscow, including the Jack-in-the-Box, officers were able to dodge their KGB tails, meet with spies, and retrieve information. Since 2009, I have spent my winters climbing in the Wasatch racking up days getting skunked, climbing ice, and generally just learning about my favorite mountains. Keeping an eye on the weather, and comparing it with past year's temperatures, and precipitation Early this month I decided that the Sundial ice, Frozen in Time, should be ready earlier that expected.
Matt and I made the approach with snow still low on the ground and managed to have a great time getting the seasonal first ascent on November 10th. Now that really isn't much to get excited about, but the idea of being first for the year makes things fun and when you are having to hunt for ice that acts like a real Jack-in-the-Box, it amplifies the fun. It is things like this that contribute to climbing being continually interesting (I think) and I only realized there was a chance that it was ready to climb from the experiences I have from my tenure as a climber here.
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| Starting up it is really hard to believe that it is a full pitch length. |
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| I always feel I need a good warm up and refresher to moving on the ice again. |
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| Heading home, all the while laughing at the idea of breaking trail in waste deep powder to get here. |
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| The mountain with the ice to it's right. All photos: Matt Berry. |
1 All quotes came from The Billon Dollar Spy by David E. Hoffman
