Ice climbing: Part adrenaline rush, part puzzle-solving test

Chuck Monjak was partway up his first-ever attempt at a nearly vertical ice formation when he found himself in a terrifying predicament.

With his weight supported only by the tips of his crampons, he had to figure out how to get around a bulging column of ice.

He thought about giving up. But he kept his cool.

"It's both an adrenaline rush and it's a puzzle-solving test. A lot of engineers, technical people get into this because of the problem-solving abilities necessary to do vertical ice," said Monjak, an optical systems engineer for a semiconductor firm.

Monjak was learning to ice climb on Frankenstein Cliff. If the location's name didn't evoke a sense of horror then one look at the route he was attempting certainly did.

Dracula, a 30-meter ice fall, is one of the most challenging of the more than two dozen ice climbing routes that attract thrill-seekers to New Hampshire's Crawford Notch State Park each winter.

Frankenstein Cliff was not named for the monster story, but for a 19th-century German landscape painter who was attracted to the beauty of the cliffs. Groundwater seeping out of the granite freezes each winter to create extraordinary icefalls.

Climbing such ice structures is thrilling and dangerous.

Earlier this month, an ice climber had to be rescued after falling 15 to 18 meters on Cannon Cliff in New Hampshire. In upstate New York, a woman survived a 21-meter spill at Kaaterskill Falls, and another climber tumbled nearly 12 meters at Platte Clove, both on the same day in late January.

On Dracula, Monjak trusted his life to a rope being belayed by partner Yuki Fujita, who has been climbing Frankenstein's ice for nearly 50 years. Fujita, 69, a retired nuclear engineer, climbed the route first.

Elsewhere in the park is Arethusa Falls, where a 18-meter pitch attracts climbers.

In late January, Akiko Kawai, 51, of Medford, Massachusetts, was climbing with two partners. As she packed her gear following several successful climbs, she said she doesn't dwell on the sport's dangers.

"You can choose the level of risk," she said. "The more informed you are about it the more you are aware of the level of what your comfort level is."