NW Face of Mt. Andromeda

Note: Re: photo of the face- we climbed the face right of the obvious flow.

Climbed a new route on the NW Face of Mt. Andromeda yesterday with Jon Walsh AKA Jonny Red. We went with amibitons of climbing a pround, oft looked at, hard water ice line. The "line" was melting fast and not touching down. The rock to get to it was also very blank.
In order to make a day of it we decided to climb an easier line off to the right side of the face via wandering weaknesses and asthetic features. We ended up roping up for 3 pitches plus a bit of sinuclimbing through easier mixed terrain. The first 2 pitches were water ice. Both were very thin (5 cm's on average) and quite fragile. You could feel the ice shell move at your feet when you swung your tools almost all the time. Jonny had a good lead on a WI4 X pitch that was a good 30m of delicate climbing with no pro. I had a great M4/5 ish pitch with good gear and steep climbing. The whole face is quite low angled. The lower part of the face has cliff bands to work through that make for good climbing and the upper aprt of the face is mostly a ramble. A good face to climb this time of year though. A first day of climbing with Jonny Red and a great warm up for the bigger things to come.