Ice Ice baby....

So having said bye bye to skiing, what have I been up to?  Messing about on ice, that’s what. 

Balfour Falls - Typical of what we climbed

The mountain skills semester began at a fast pace; heading straight out to learn the basics of moving on ice on day 1, and progressing to a 7 day expedition in order to learn all about ice climbing.

Half the group after a days climb at 2 O'clock Falls

Along with the eleven other students and two guides, I headed out to the Athabasca Ice Fields in the Jasper National Park.  The students on this course are more of a diverse collection than they were during my ski instructors’ course. This time I am not the oldest; there is a 60 year old Norwegian [although he has already climbed Everest], there are three people from Japan, another Brit and six Canadians, with ages ranging from 19 through to mid 30’s.  From a medical point of view the group is well catered for as it contains a doctor and two emergency medical technicians. The other Brit, Occy, is a 19 year from Jersey, to whom I have taken a shine. I find him very amusing: he loves the military and has possibly read more Andy McNab’s and Chris Ryan’s than I have. I see in him a reflection of myself at that age. He did state that we call Cantaloupe melons, orange melons in England, and he only discovered what WC stood for when one of the guides announced that that is where I was, as opposed to being at the dinner table. Hence the source of some of my amusement.

After spending a week with the group in the confined enclosure of an isolated mountain lodge, Occy and I were left wondering who would be the first to flash in a fit of rage. Something which is bound to happen at some point. Poor personal hygiene, snoring, bad light discipline, laziness during group chores will all act as fuel to a fire sparked by fatigue.  In some ways I look forward to this happening.

Whilst the hut might have been isolated and basic: no electricity, no communications, two 6 man rooms and a hole in the ground for the WC, the food provided by Yamnuska [the company running the programme] is amazing. They run a world class expedition food company alongside the guiding company. All of our meals are perfectly balanced from a nutrition point of view and cooked/dehydrated in house. They also provide us with daily snack packs – I have now eaten so many Cliff power bars that I feel like a pro extreme athlete with sponsorship.

Back to the main topic of Ice climbing, which is basically climbing frozen waterfalls using an ice axe in each hand and with crampons strapped to your feet.  I quickly progressed from learning how to walk on ice in crampons and how to use the axes to climbing near vertical frozen waterfalls.

As it turns out I am not a natural ice climber; it takes a degree of coordination of all four limbs that I seem to be lacking.  When combined with a vice lack grip on the axes, making my arms burnout within metres, and an inability to effectively swing the ice axe with my left arm [due to previous shoulder surgery, at least that is my excuse] I quickly felt my morale sinking as I struggled to climb efficiently.  In the words of one instructor I was, “inventing my own style of climbing”.  Never-the-less I gave it my all and struggled through.  

Me Climbing

The whole experience was pretty amazing, even if I didn’t excel. We had great weather: a very sunny and warm -2 to +10 ˚C, more preferential to the average temps of below -15˚C that we should have been experiencing. This reduced the ‘quality’ of the ice, we often found ourselves climbing on a mixture of snow and ice that was melting and reverting back to its waterfall state.  The warm weather was a contributing factor to the number of avalanches we observed and heard; each serving as a reminder of the dangers of being in the mountains. 

 

An Avalanche - Honest

I built this anchor after leading a pitch

As well as learning the basics of anchor building, ice screw placement, vertical movement patterns, rope work, multi pitch and lead climbing, the highlight of the trip was a guided multi pitch climb with one instructor taking two students on a day’s expedition. Along with two other trios of climbers I headed out at 0430 to scale a route on Marcherson falls, one of the Canadian Rockies classic routes. We were destined for ‘Polar Circus’ allegedly world famous and one of the top climbs in N America, however during our kit preparations the night before we discovered that someone had broke in to the trailer and stolen our avalanche rescue beacons. Without these we couldn’t proceed in to such high risk avalanche terrain – something I can’t say I was too upset by.

I fell going over the third ridge.

To get to the staging area we had a 2hr hike at pace and in the dark; racing the sun to avoid its melting affects. The guide then lead me to a height of about 120 meters over four pitches of quite complex climbing, all graded between WI 3+ and 4 [the scale only goes up to 7].  This sounds like a task that should have been reasonably easily accomplished and a fun day out.  Which I am sure it would have been had I not chosen to fall on the last pitch resulting in me throwing one axe 20 metres to the ledge below and leaving one stuck in the ice 5 metres above.  Luckily my five days of training kicked in [actually a mixture of terror and brute strength] and I managed to scale the 5 meters back to my axe with my bare hands and continued the climb.  The guide lowered one of his axes, which I clipped to my belt choosing to finish the climb with just the one; something which very much surprised and amused the guide as I crested the ridge from where he was belaying.

Marcherson falls

Steep Ice

A snow bollard, I abseiled from this!

A Happy staging area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The walk home.

Physically drained after about 3 hours of climbing, I had a long wait at the top whilst my partner followed me up.  Needless to say no one took the piss at all when my ordeal was finally over, and I was safe at the staging area.  This climb was an amazing experience, but one that I hope not to repeat in the too near future.  Throughout the whole trip, but on this climb in particular, the guides were amazing. Great instructors, excellent climbers and not fazed by my general incompetence.

As well as ice climbing I gave mixed climbing or dry tooling a go; this is basically where you climb rock whilst wearing your crampons and still using ice axes.  I found this much more agreeable as I was free to use my limbs as I saw fit, not being forced to follow some rigid movement patterns that I couldn’t master.  I would almost go as far as to say I really enjoyed the mixed climbing, which seemed to go against the general consensus of the group.

A Guide showing us how mixed climbing is done.

Bullshit Canyon - Bolted mixed climbs

To celebrate the end of our week of epic adventures, and partly due to a change in hostels, a few of us decided to go out for a few beers. However we were thwarted in our quest due to the fact young Occy did not have any ID with him. In one pub we were told you can’t get away with that in a ‘resort town’ and in another before even saying hello the bar man said “Right first I am going to need to see some ID’s from you all”. We turned and walked out straight away, I was left wondering whether or not he really wanted to see mine, at my age I stopped carrying it years ago. Although I did see a sign stating ‘40 is the new 25’ so you never know.

Having Fun

One of the most enjoyable aspects of ice climbing in the spring conditions was the ease at which one can smash the hanging ice to pieces.  It’s amazing how much frustration can be vented and fun had smashing a few icicles or kicking holes in big chunks of ice.  Overall I really enjoyed the first trip away of my mountain semester but I think I summed up my views of ice climbing to Occy when he asked me on the last day what I wanted to climb next, much to his merriment I replied, “I couldn’t give a fuck if I never climb ice again”.

After saying bye bye to skiing, it’s now time to say hello again, as the next few weeks see me taking to the mountains and backcountry on Skis. EEK!!!! :)