Hydrophobia at “The Lake”
Aurora Direct
Lake Willoughby VT
“Larry and I rapped back to the ledge and Matt had just started the next rap when all hell broke loose!
Tons and Tons of water cut loose at very high pressure over the big wall for about ten minutes. It was just ten feet to our right. I cant explain what it was like, just terrifying. We were planning to rappel one hundred feet over in that direction. If we were a few minutes ahead we would of been goners. We could not even go back that way because it was so wet and the ice so washed out. So we had a totally epic rapper down the big wall with stuck ropes hanging belays and all. Our 70 meter ropes are now about 30 meters”. – Dave Powers
Amazing story. Never saw anything like it over the past 20 years of Willby Ice. Must have been a lot of ice and rock crud taken down with the water. -j