The following is an overdue TR from 2011, my first real ice climbing season.

Fear and Loathing: A Savage Journey into the Heart of the Canadian Rockies


Climbing ice on Vancouver Island is a fickle thing, if not completely non-existent. They say the ice season is great (all 3 days of it) but beyond playing around on piddly smears I never got on any real ice pitches. I wanted more, I'd been wanting to try ice climbing since shortly after I started rock climbing and I knew the only way to get proficient at it was to climb with greater frequency. I called my buddy Lee, beers were drank, a plan was hatched, Feb 8th 2011, the day after my birthday we would hop the ferry for an extended trip through the Rockies.

Since we had nobody to teach us the in and outs, we read up as much as we could on techniques and protection, amassed a storage of gear, packed and re-packed, drank some more beer, second-guessed ourselves, and finally the day came. I said goodbye to my loving girlfriend who was understanding enough to bear with me leaving for a month and actually stoked on our behalf. She packed us a wicked treasure basket of homemade deer jerky smoked in Frank's red hot, along with some other goodies, at 5 am the car pulled out of the drive and we hit the road.

We had chosen to take Lee's ghetto Hyundai with studded snow tires, I wasn't sure it would make the trip but it surprised us (numerous times) and for customization purposes we glued and duct taped whatever we saw fit to the interior, including speakers for laptop DJ'ing, a toothbrush holder and whatever else we could think of.

The plan was simple, we would head straight for the Duffey lake road and hit up the first easy ice route we could find. Being relative newcomers, our plan was to lead easy routes and TR hard pitches to gain confidence. We managed to hit the Rambles WI2 on our first day.

Lee led a short super easy pitch, we swapped and I led another easy pitch which ended in some fabled moss-tooling, we reached the base of a short pillar (WI3) which upon topping out was discovered to be completely detached with a 4" fissure along the top, we spent the night in a ghetto roadside bivy.

We headed on to Lilooet and checked out the falls on the edge of town. Next we took a short trip down the Bridge River area only to encounter poor ice conditions with the best ice being that which covered the river.

We chose to press on to Marble Canyon where we hoped to get on some harder ice as we didn't feel that challenged up to this point. We arrived at dark and set up camp before dinner, and were lulled to sleep by the sounds of coyotes howling in the hills. The next morning we crossed the lake to the ice, beautiful curtains of steep WI4-5 with some mixed lines. The ice was pretty hooked out so we set up a TR and ran laps on the good stuff until to get some pump.

We ended up staying for another liesurely day, climbing Icy BC WI4, an absolute classic line and running some laps on the first two pitches.

We crashed for another night, then spent the next day bumming around Kamloops picking up some extra gear from Valhalla Pure Outfitters and taking a much needed shower at the pool, as we were getting a little grimy by this point.

We headed onwards, the long stretch to Jasper where we bummed around for a couple days climbing everything in Maligne canyon. We also headed toward Hinton and checked out Drambuie Demon.

We headed out towards Mt. Kerkeslin, hoping to climb the popular falls, but after digging a pit on the approach (it caved and whoomphed) we were turned off by a nasty layer of hoarfrost. We spent the next few days travelling up and down the parkway climbing some of the easy smears close to the road, I ended up getting far more pictures along the highway then I did of the climbing.
We knew we were nearing the heart of the Rockies, the mountains were getting bigger, the ice lines more stunning. Nearly every drainage sported some sick WI6RX ice pitches.
After a few too many cold nights we opted to crash at Ramparts Creek Hostel which is located in the heart of the parkway. It's a popular base for ice climbers due to the close proximity to numerous classic ice lines, and the ever popular Weeping Wall.

We headed down the David Thompson to Cline River where we led and ran TR laps on everything we could find.

From there we headed on down to Canmore and spent a day at the Junkyards, a notoriously popular spot, fun for a day but not enough lines to keep us interested, it was crowded for sure but we all shared.

The next day we spent in Grotto Canyon climbing His and Hers (WI4?) and Grotto Falls (WI3)

The next day was spent getting our mixed climbing fix at Haffner Creek, the place was busy so we shared TR's with several other groups. This was my first ever day of mixed climbing and I was stoked to climb some random M7 route with a sick crux involving a high heel hook hanging off a cammed pick placement to a huge reach to some thin ice, I got the beta from some awesome women who let us run some laps on their rope. I fired it but not until my pick popped once smashing my face with the hammer. Unfortunately the only picture I got that day was of this large dagger that collapsed, narrowly missing a girl who decided to walk underneath and terrifying the guy who just climbed off it.

We spent the next day at Johnstone Canyon climbing whatever was free as the place was busy. For the second day in a row a large ice chunk dropped, this time in freefall for about 60 feet before detonating and sending ice chunks everywhere. I witnessed several people continue to climb right under where it fell, silly if you ask me.

We finished the day by hoofing it to Bear Spirit(?) where we climbed some cool mixed routes (in the background of the picture) and the main curtain, and ran a few laps until the light started to disappear.

We spent the next few days around the Canmore/Kananaskis area where we hoofed it back into Grotto Canyone up to what i believe was Crystal Tear? We also managed to get into Moonlight and Chantilly falls on a brutally cold day.

By this point in the trip, the temperatures were dropping and the avalanche danger was off the charts. We had hoped to climb the classic Cascade Falls but were warned by everyone not to go, for fear of the bowl above ripping loose due to wind load. Being that we were only leading WI3-4, our objectives limited us to several routes that were in avalanche traps, this was to be a re-ocurring theme which included twice being turned back due to the highway north being closed for bombing.

On a reccomendation we jetted back up the parkway to climb Melt Out, one of the best WI3 routes of the trip. Lee led the first pitch and I the second, a stellar moderate ice route.

Lee also climbed this next route, a 2m pitch FA which we named Jagerbomber WI1...

By this point in the trip, the temps were dropping lower than the funds in our bank accounts and we decided to head towards home. There is far more ice in the Rockies then there is hours in the day, we missed out on climbing several classics but we had discovered what it is that attracts people to come back for years and years. Teaching yourself how to ice climb is not necessarily the best way to learn, we had opted to keep things fairly safe leading only WI3-4 and TRing anything harder, but I never took a fall the entire trip, not that you want to ever fall on ice. It was a great introduction but all I wanted was to get better, once you hit the WI5 range the world really opens up and there are so many classic lines to choose from. I hope to head back someday soon and get a chance to team up with a rope-gun who can take me up some of the more stunning lines I saw.