After seeing the above photo on National Geographic’s website under Extreme Photo of the Week, we knew we had to get in touch with the photographer to find out more. In that shot, climber Craig Pope is seen crossing an ice cave to a free-standing 82-foot-tall icicle without ropes or protection. Talk about extreme.
On capturing that moment, photographer Ben Herndon told National Geographic, “For this shot the real challenge was the constant dripping water from the icicles on the cave ceiling above. And there was the small possibility of Craig skewering me with his crampons. I decided to move directly underneath Craig. The trick was to time the shot when he was looking down to find feet placement, so you end up with this sprawling profile on top of the intense eyes.”
A few years ago, Herndon decided to start shooting rock climbing with his friend Craig Pope, another Moscow, Idaho local, when we came upon this sport called ice climbing. “He had started killing it on ice and it seemed like a beautiful and dynamic form of climbing,” Herndon explains. “He dragged me along to Banks Lake in central Washington state during a balmy 5 degree day. It was actually kind of a traumatic first time experience. I was fumbling with all of my photo and climbing gear as I approached our first ice route when a limo-sized ice formation detached on a climb above us. We couldn’t see it fall so all I heard was this enormous crash and then two-hundred pound ice blocks came rapidly pachinko-ing down the hillside at me.