Puttering Around In The Cold (Climbing Ice In The Canadian Rockies)

What follows is a barely coherent account of the trip Noah Macdonald and I took out to the Rockies over reading break, with a guest appearance by Evan Wong that was unfortunately cut short by unforeseen circumstances. In the end, we concluded that climbing in -24 °C is unpleasant, that using an unheated outhouse in -24 °C is more unpleasant, and that life is just a series of intermissions between visits to the Rampart Creek sauna.

At some point in the past, Noah and I had decided to go out to the Rockies to climb ice over reading break. Fast forward to the week before reading break, we have yet to plan anything. We sat down and began to brainstorm objectives, our itinerary was as follows (this changed many times throughout the trip, a greatly simplified version is below):

1. Drive to Canmore
2. Cascade Falls (WI3)
3. Louise Falls (WI4+), then drive up the Icefields Parkway
4. Weeping Wall Left (WI4)
5. Shades of Beauty (WI4)
6. Drive to Roger’s Pass [Evan joins for the rest of the trip] West ridge of Mt. Tupper (Alpine mixed???)
7. Noah leads Pilsner Pillar (WI6) while I look on with Pilsner
8. Something else
9. Drive back to Vancouver

After this was sorted, we felt ready to go, except that Noah was suffering from an extreme case of academic annihilation. The day before we left, he decided to climb 10 pitches of ice in Hope, then get 2.5 hours of sleep while frantically trying to finish all his work (he didn’t). Despite this, we rolled out of Vancouver at 06:00 on Saturday morning.

Day 1: The wheels on the RAV4 go round and round

Our drive began in a disappointingly normal manner. We drove from Vancouver to Merritt, at which point Noah proclaimed that 2.5 hours of sleep was not enough to continue safely driving. I took over from there. Once I was behind the wheel all sorts of exciting events began to unfold, namely one exciting event. We pulled into the Revelstoke McDonald’s parking lot next to a van with a wing mirror the size of a beach ball made of many small mirrors taped together. The entire assembly was attached to the van with approximately 1172.46 rolls of duct tape.

We left the car and began heading inside for some lunch with a high calorie:cost ratio. We had only got about halfway across the parking lot before we were hailed by a middle-aged woman, “Hey! You two!”. Hmmm… does she own the van and spotted us laughing and taking photos?

“I just wanted to commend you on your excellent driving”

… confused silence … “Uhhh thanks, the road was a little slippery wasn’t it?”

[I don’t remember the rest of the conversation, but apparently she had followed us to the MacDonalds specifically to tell us that]

 

Needless to say, we were a bit bewildered. I had been driving carefully, but not particularly slowly. Our leading theory is that we were the two classic young male yahoos with skis on the roof and we weren’t fulfilling the stereotype and doing 169 km/h into Revelstoke. Regardless of why, I think that it was possibly the strangest encounter of my life to date. Aside from that, we arrived at Noah’s Mom’s place in Canmore without incident and set about purchasing food, sorting gear and saying hi to Noah’s dog.

Day 2: The Diedre of Rockies ice (Cascade Falls)

The next morning we rose early and set off from Canmore to climb Cascade Falls. The forecast had predicted today would be the coldest day at -20something °C, so we were relieved when we pulled into the parking lot and it was “only” -17 °C. In the dark we managed to miss the approach “trail” (more of a 8-lane freeway, it’s a popular climb) and ended bushwacking for 20 minutes instead of walking for 5.

When we arrived at the base, there was a thin layer of water running over the entire waterfall. What? Despite it having not been above -15 °C for several weeks, the ice was still running with water and rather slushy. Although wet and annoying, it meant that every swing was a perfect stick, and that removing your tools from the ice was the crux of the day. We half pitched out, half simul-climbed the first few pitches of WI2 before arriving below the two crux pitches, graded WI3/3+. For some reason half of these pitches had water flowing down them, and in other spots the ice was so iron-hard our picks would bounce off for the first few swings. Noah made short work of these two pitches, and we arrived at the top in good time. But there was more ice above…

We continued waltzing on up a gully notorious for having atrocious avalanche hazard. Luckily for us, the snowpack was about 10 cm deep, there was bare scree sticking out in the usual start zones. We climbed two more pitches of damp WI2 before the ice ran out and we rappelled back to the road, this time we located the proper trail and only gave two hikers heart attacks running down completely out of control (we had taken off our crampons and it got steep).

Day 3: WI5 is hard (Louise Falls)

Fresh off WI3 victory, we decided to have a crack at Louise Falls (WI4+). Given its popularity, we elected to start early. We pulled into the parking lot at 06:00 and it was -21 °C. So much for yesterday being the warmest day. We then proceeded to sit in the car for an hour feeling wimpy and waiting for it to warm up. It did not warm up. At 07:00 we left the car and began walking across the lake towards our objective. We arrived at the base with very frozen eyelashes only to find that another party had beaten us there. After some discussion we determined that they would be faster than us (read: they would be faster than me). We let them go ahead, and true to their word they blitzed up the first two pitches.

After they were done pitch two, we started up pitch one as it was sheltered from icefall off pitch three. Shortly after I arrived at the pitch one anchor, Noah said he was going to peer around the corner and see how far up pitch three the other party was. Noah disappeared from view (on belay) and paused as much muffled shouting came from above. Suddenly he stuck his head around the corner and said he was starting. No further context was given so I shivered in a confused state as Noah lead a WI4 pitch in his belay puffy that he hadn’t taken off in this mysterious hurry. After I followed the pitch and arrived at the belay station in a very cool cave I learned the source of the shouting. The leader of the party ahead of us had dropped one of his tools as he was starting to lead pitch three, but it had landed on a ledge halfway down the second pitch. So Noah had gone up and retrieved it for them on his way. However, this meant that now there were four of us at the one belay station waiting to climb the final pitch. Being much faster than I am, the other party’s leader started off and flew up the pitch.

Then it was our turn, Noah disappeared from view as he crawled out of the cave and around a pillar. The rope kept steadily paying out for the next little while, then I heard:

Hrrrraaaaahhhhh!    Hrrrraaaaahhhhh!    Hrrrraaaaahhhhh!    SCREAMINGBARFIESSCREAMINGBARFIESSCREAMINGBARFIES!!!!!

It turns out Noah had pulled a sneaky and decided to do a WI5 variation to the final pitch, rather than the standard WI4+ finish. He got the barfies part way up and ended up having to hang on a tool to warm up his hands (Julian Larsen later commented that the first time he heard Noah with the barfies he “thought a goat was dying somewhere above us”). Ha! Retribution for what I was about to go through. After much cursing and groaning Noah’s hands were warm, and he continued on in much better style. Then I had to follow the pitch. If WI4 feels like 5.10, then WI5 feels like 5.12, only you really don’t want to fall. Much whimpering, cursing and aiding ensued as I took an hour to follow the pitch. I provided quite the spectacle to the hoards of tourists watching from the trail. My sophisticated aiding technique is as follows:

1)      I would clip into one of my tools, then reach up as high as possible and place the other one.

2)      I would then lock off on the higher tool, and clip into it before retrieving the lower one.

Given that I didn’t want to load my tools dynamically I could only reach up so far and each of these cycles would gain me about 30cm. There was roughly 12m of WI5 before the terrain eased off. I was decidedly unhappy by the time I got to the top.

After this debacle, I made Noah swear to not pull another sneaky and keep the grades below WI5. We then drove off in search of forecasted warmer weather on the Icefields Parkway. That evening we arrived at the HI Rampart Creek Hostel (the world’s best place). We immediately made good use of the sauna, noticed that cold plunge pool was decidedly frozen, then proceeded to cook some “grim” stir fry for dinner. Noah’s standards for what constitutes grim food are much lower than mine; dinner was excellent.

Day 4: Out of the freezer and into the barbeque (Weeping Wall Left-Hand)

On day four we decided to treat ourselves to a late start, since we had gotten at most five hours of sleep for both nights before this. Our objective was Weeping Wall Left-Hand WI4, a super-giga-uber classic just off the road on the right side of the parkway. When we left the car, the promised warm front had still not materialized, and it was again -22 °C. We put on all the clothes we had and prepared to get cold.

Noah started up the first pitch as I got progressively colder at the base. Then the sun came out. It seemed to go from -22 °C to 22 °C in a matter of seconds, although the air temperature remained around -12 °C. After following the first pitch I felt like I was being cooked alive, and Noah was belaying in one fleece jacket with no gloves. I spent the next 15 minutes practicing my arial gymnastics trying to remove my shell pants without removing my harness at a semi-hanging belay. Eventually I had victory, and Noah lead off again. The next four pitches were the best of the trip, perfect planar WI4 in the perfect temperature. The top of pitch four was spectacular, a steep bulge above 150 m of air. Even a mountain goat showed up to watch.

Once at the top, our 30 year old guidebook instructed us to rappel a route called “Sniveling Gully” to descend. We still have no idea where the optimal descent is but the sling on the second anchor looked at least 30 years old. We used all the bail cord we had on us to get down safely. Sniveling Gully was also actively flowing with water, and the ropes landed directly in a pool of water and immediately froze completely stiff when removed. We made it back to the car very satisfied, other than the rappel snafu it had been a thoroughly enjoyable day.

Day 5: Gear explosions and not-so-frozen waterfalls (Shades of Beauty & Panther Falls)

The next day was our last at the Rampart Creek Hostel, so we endeavored to make it a good one. Our plan was to climb Shades of Beauty WI4 in the morning, then to do some homework and spend the afternoon in the sauna. We arose early and drove off in -22 °C (no warm front for us). As we drove north the temperature steadily rose, passing the Icefields Centre we saw -12 °C. Sadly, Shades of Beauty is in a valley with a river, a valley that apparently retains cold air very well. We set off in -24 °C, here we go again. After the longest approach of the trip, a whole 40 minutes, we arrived at the base.

We racked up in the cold and were treated to a beautiful alpenglow display on the mountains across the valley. Shortly thereafter, Noah started up the first WI2 pitch and about halfway up the rope suddenly stopped paying out.

Hrrrraaaaahhhhh!    Hrrrraaaaahhhhh!    Hrrrraaaaahhhhh!    SCREAMINGBARFIESSCREAMINGBARFIESSCREAMINGBARFIES!!!!!

It was cold, Shades of Beauty is north facing. I followed the pitch and had a very similar experience to Noah, he heard the same thing as I was coming up. Pitch two was a 15 m pillar of perfect WI4, which Noah lead in his belay puffy because it was so cold. Pitch three was where the fun began, it was apparently a 50m version of pitch two. Noah started up and put in his first screw about 3 m up the pitch, as he continued past it, I saw him stop, shake his right foot, kick again, shake his foot again and then peer down at his crampon. He then immediately put in a second screw, asked for a take and inspected his foot more closely. After a minute he lowered off and walked over to me, “Well, R.I.P. GTech” was the first thing he said. The toe welt on his GTech mountaineering boot (the little shelf the crampon toe bail sits on) had snapped, and the toe bail on his crampon had shifted in between his boot and the sole, so the crampon wobbled. Not good. In fact, very bad. We descended and drove back to the hostel to decide our next course of action.

Once we took a closer look at the boot, it became clear that it was permanently done for. Trip ending gear failure strikes again. We spent the next several hours doing some schoolwork and figuring out at what ungodly hour we would need to leave at if we wanted to make it to Rogers Pass by 07:00 the next day. During this time, Noah’s friend Anton Korsun (who had randomly appeared at the hostel the day before) walked in. He said he was looking to climb something, and we were instantly game. Anton is a WI6+ leader so we figured he could ropegun us up something hard. The only issue was that it was 14:30 and Noah had to climb in his ski boots. Given these factors, Anton shot down Noah’s proposal of Curtain Call WI6 and we settled on Panther Falls, another mega classic WI4 on the parkway.

When we showed up to the base we noticed the ice looked rather thin and there was a substantial amount of raging waterfall behind it. After listening to the entire waterfall make several very alarming creaking sounds, Anton proceeded to lead off on the hollowest looking section. After this impressive feat, it was up to me and Noah to not fall through into the torrent below. I very cautiously and delicately balanced my way up this pillar of 3 cm thick ice, only sticking my picks through the ice into the water behind twice. After a few pants-soiling minutes on this feature, I very gratefully pulled above into an ice cave halfway up. I then watched as Noah began to climb out of the cave on a thin curtain-like feature. Whenever he swung, the entire thing would vibrate and bits of it would fall off behind the curtain. Coming up that was invigorating, but above it was a super cool dihedral feature. I ended up genuinely knee-barring, swinging out of the knee-bar, standing up and drop-kneeing with the other leg to reach a hook behind my head then pulling over the top. World’s most 3D WI4, Anton is a beast.

We immediately proceeded to get lost on the way back to the car and ended up swimming through waist to chest deep facets for 20 minutes. We then encountered a frozen river that Noah and I crossed without issue beyond some scary sounding hollow ice. However, the ice gods must have been displeased with how easily Anton dispatched Panther Falls and he punched through, leaving a scary looking hole into oblivion. Luckily, no harm was done, and we continued back to the car. We headed back to the hostel, made another “grim” meal and ascertained that would need to be up at 03:00 the next morning to leave for Roger’s Pass. After a final half hour in the sauna, we retired early and tried to get some sleep.

Day 6: Snow is white, clouds are white (Attempt on Tupper W Ridge & the Hermit Gendarme)

At 03:00 that morning we rolled out of bed, made some breakfast, and hopped in the car to head to Roger’s Pass. We picked up a certain Evan Wong in Golden then kept on trucking (RAV4ing) to the Roger’s Pass Discovery Centre. Our goal was to climb the West ridge of Mt. Tupper and get some photographs of Noah and I on the Hermit Gendarme. Upon arriving we yardsaled all of our gear in the parking lot and attracted many bewildered looks from the tourists and skiers. We started skinning up at 08:00 below an ominously low cloud ceiling. As we gained elevation the clouds became denser and denser. Once we broke above the treeline the skintrack became very faint and disused. We checked the map, and we appeared to be several hundred meters too far to the left. We began to traverse rightwards but were blocked by cliffs and were forced upwards. After about an hour the clouds had become so thick that we couldn’t tell where the snow ended and the sky started. Noah took out a length of cord and tied it to the end of his pole and began to go fishing. The cord landed in the snow, Noah shuffled forward, the cord landed in the snow again, forward again, cord vanishes. That’s a cliff, turns left, that’s a cliff, farther left, that’s a cliff. At this point, we made the responsible and prudent decision to bail.

We followed our track out and encountered some apparently awful skiing. I’m no prolific skier so to me the skiing seemed fine, albeit with the occasional wipeout because the hill in front of me suddenly got very steep (it was still a complete white-out). Once back in the trees we skied out through some unpleasantly steep and narrow terrain. I was glad to be alive after the white-out and interesting ski out, but Evan disagreed (he vehemently hates bailing), and we experienced “sad penguin” Evan in the parking lot.

We deliberated and ultimately decided to head back to Vancouver right away. The weather was rapidly deteriorating, and Noah only had ski boots, so he couldn’t lead anything harder than WI4 at most. The drive back was even less eventful than the drive out. Despite stopping at A&W in Kamloops, nobody complimented me on my driving. Maybe that’s just a Revelstoke McDonald’s thing?