We were having a very cold winter in 2002; a good old-fashioned, chilling time where cars won't start, seats are frozen hard, engine block heaters are a necessity, strange noises emit from protesting mechanical parts, and starting the engine at a trailhead after a climb is a gamble. But what is one to do, wait for better weather? This kind of weather creates the best ice.
My situation was generally of the type that climbs must be undertaken on days off from work, and the weather is secondary to that. So it happened that a friend and I found ourselves heading to the central Front Ranges of the Rockies in David Thompson Country, one of the premier ice climbing destinations in western Canada, on a Friday afternoon in temperatures that had been hovering around minus thirty-five degrees for at least two weeks.
Photo by Sean Presley
My situation was generally of the type that climbs must be undertaken on days off from work, and the weather is secondary to that. So it happened that a friend and I found ourselves heading to the central Front Ranges of the Rockies in David Thompson Country, one of the premier ice climbing destinations in western Canada, on a Friday afternoon in temperatures that had been hovering around minus thirty-five degrees for at least two weeks.
We arrived at the Pinto Creek trailhead on Highway 11 just after dark. The trailhead was an old gravel parking lot covered in up to two feet of snow, some fairly recent. There were no tracks and without a four-wheel-drive truck we'd have been stuck ten feet from the highway. But we were able to drive in a couple of hundred yards, out of sight of the highway, and set about making a camp for the night. The mercury was still dropping as we got out our two-burner camp stove and made dinner, using the stove to warm our hands often as well.
We had a couple of ice cold beers, more out of tradition and anything else, and for some reason stayed up until about midnight, walking around in the moonlight before finally crawling into the frozen shell on the back of Shawn's Ford truck. I looked at the thermometer attached to the exterior of the truck: it read -45 degrees. We cranked on the stove again and watched the warm air push the ice-cold vapour out of the shell through any cracks and holes it could. We managed to create a fairly comfortable room for about the five minutes it took to crawl into our sleeping bags, get them warmed up and get settled in, then turned off the stove and slept well until morning.
We had a couple of ice cold beers, more out of tradition and anything else, and for some reason stayed up until about midnight, walking around in the moonlight before finally crawling into the frozen shell on the back of Shawn's Ford truck. I looked at the thermometer attached to the exterior of the truck: it read -45 degrees. We cranked on the stove again and watched the warm air push the ice-cold vapour out of the shell through any cracks and holes it could. We managed to create a fairly comfortable room for about the five minutes it took to crawl into our sleeping bags, get them warmed up and get settled in, then turned off the stove and slept well until morning.
We awoke well after dawn, around 9:00 am. There was pounding on the truck; it was Shawn's friend Mike Adolph, a local climbing guide and owner of the Center for Outdoor Education , who was there to teach an ice climbing class at the Cline River Gallery, a steep canyon with several single-pitch ice routes of various difficulty. The thermometer read -32 degrees; it had warmed up overnight. We got prepared and hiked for an hour or so into the canyon rim, which was steep and dangerous. Shawn had been there before, and led us to a suitable spot to walk down onto the river, and we soon found Mike and his class warming up on one of the easier walls.
Left photo by Sean Presley
Left photo by Sean Presley
We hiked downriver a few hundred yards, being careful to avoid several big black patches of open water. We arrived at the bottom of Nightmare on Elm Street and spent the next six hours climbing and rappelling it. To do so we initially climbed out of the canyon, set up a rappel and simul-rapped together off the top edge of it, unsure of what was below a large bulge that prevented us from seeing the bottom of the route. Over the bulge and.....open water!
We looked at each other, shrugged and continued down, traversing far to the left as we could and grounding out several feet from the deadly black water. It was a fun day of freezing hands, made worse by sometimes squeezing our ice tools too tightly and generally having our arms raised above our heads all day. Hard brittle ice from intense cold created a lot of dinner plating, forcing the belayer to take cover off to one side, when open water allowed. The route was wet from the sun's rays in spite of the cold, which actually warmed up to a balmy -25 degrees in the sheltered canyon.
Left photo by Sean Presley
We looked at each other, shrugged and continued down, traversing far to the left as we could and grounding out several feet from the deadly black water. It was a fun day of freezing hands, made worse by sometimes squeezing our ice tools too tightly and generally having our arms raised above our heads all day. Hard brittle ice from intense cold created a lot of dinner plating, forcing the belayer to take cover off to one side, when open water allowed. The route was wet from the sun's rays in spite of the cold, which actually warmed up to a balmy -25 degrees in the sheltered canyon.
Left photo by Sean Presley
The next morning we were up by dawn and off to SARs On Ice, a wide curtain of beautifully-featured WI III - IV blue ice partway up a mountain which is nameless to me. We drove to Whirlpool Point on Highway 11, about 22 miles east of the junction of Highway 11 and Highway 93, the Icefield Parkway. Highway 11 runs from Rocky Mountain House to Saskatchewan River Crossing, and the beauty of it is that you can drive along and spot all kinds of frozen waterfalls, lines and drips along both sides of the road. Some were absolutely huge, some long and thin, leading up to others higher on the same peaks.
SARs is one of those; it's the gateway to climb a higher route, Five Seven Zero. Both routes are rated at WI IV. Shawn knows every water ice route in the Rockies and David Thompson Country, and his practiced eye soon spotted the familiar curtain. We pulled off to the side of the highway, ditched his truck, took a compass bearing on the route and began bushwhacking towards it. Gray cloud filled the sky, trapping the warm air below and creating the warmer -25 degree weather that we were enjoying today.
Left photo by Sean Presley
SARs is one of those; it's the gateway to climb a higher route, Five Seven Zero. Both routes are rated at WI IV. Shawn knows every water ice route in the Rockies and David Thompson Country, and his practiced eye soon spotted the familiar curtain. We pulled off to the side of the highway, ditched his truck, took a compass bearing on the route and began bushwhacking towards it. Gray cloud filled the sky, trapping the warm air below and creating the warmer -25 degree weather that we were enjoying today.
Left photo by Sean Presley
Mike had invited us to stay for the night in his warm house, equipped with a wood stove, so after a meal in the town of Nordegg, we headed out to the guide's place, which was a large tree house built about twelve feet off the ground. It was a very rustic, twenty-by-twenty foot bohemian two-room shack which he shared with his wife. We hung our two wet 60 meter ropes over everything we possibly could, to allow them to dry, had a few beers and slept, feeling
totally satisfied and warm.
After a fast uphill hike through moderately-deep snow the approach steepened somewhat and large hunks of ice, broken trees and a wet, frozen river of meltoff came into view. We cramponed up, and climbed the steep, icy approach to the bottom of a wide thirty-five meter high formation. We set up and spent an enjoyable five or six hours climbing and rappelling various sections of the waterfall, which was at least a hundred feet wide and contained a variety of challenges. There was a high pillar, some big hanging icicles and a few large caves and hollows. The ice was brittle from the recent cold but soon became wet, in spite of the scattered cloud and limited sunlight. We had intended to climb the route once and move on higher up to Five Seven Zero, but decided this area looked like a lot of fun, the hike uphill didn't due to steeper snow with possible avalanche conditions, and so we made this our area for the day. As with most routes in David Thompson Country, we had the place to ourselves all day and didn't see or hear another soul. Finally as the sun was setting we packed up our wet ropes and other gear and headed back down our trail to Shawn's truck, still parked forlornly on the side of the highway in the cold.
The beauty of ice climbing in the area around Highway 11 is that there is so much of it. Having since moved to areas where real ice climbing barely exists, I've grown to realize how lucky I was to have dozens of world-class routes for climbers of all capabilities almost right outside my back door. One day I'll be back there, making up for lost time as I cruise down that road looking for a perfect new route.
Left photo by Sean Presley
After a fast uphill hike through moderately-deep snow the approach steepened somewhat and large hunks of ice, broken trees and a wet, frozen river of meltoff came into view. We cramponed up, and climbed the steep, icy approach to the bottom of a wide thirty-five meter high formation. We set up and spent an enjoyable five or six hours climbing and rappelling various sections of the waterfall, which was at least a hundred feet wide and contained a variety of challenges. There was a high pillar, some big hanging icicles and a few large caves and hollows. The ice was brittle from the recent cold but soon became wet, in spite of the scattered cloud and limited sunlight. We had intended to climb the route once and move on higher up to Five Seven Zero, but decided this area looked like a lot of fun, the hike uphill didn't due to steeper snow with possible avalanche conditions, and so we made this our area for the day. As with most routes in David Thompson Country, we had the place to ourselves all day and didn't see or hear another soul. Finally as the sun was setting we packed up our wet ropes and other gear and headed back down our trail to Shawn's truck, still parked forlornly on the side of the highway in the cold.
The beauty of ice climbing in the area around Highway 11 is that there is so much of it. Having since moved to areas where real ice climbing barely exists, I've grown to realize how lucky I was to have dozens of world-class routes for climbers of all capabilities almost right outside my back door. One day I'll be back there, making up for lost time as I cruise down that road looking for a perfect new route.
Left photo by Sean Presley
