Took a little road trip to climb some Canadian ice, lost both of my partners along the way, and scored on 2 routes that had been in my dreams since I first considered climbing ice after reading Jeff Lowe’s “The Ice Experience” decades ago. I hope you enjoy these pics from way back in 2014 in this rather lengthy TR.


Despite California's drought, there was climbable ice in Lee Vining Canyon. Not a lot of ice, but enough for laps for training and technique, and grins. I got on it in December and January to test and workout my surgically re-attached left Achilles (detached it in mid-2013) and to prep my head for some Scottish winter climbing: http://www.supertopo.com/tr/Scottish-Winter-Climbing-the-BMC-International-Winter-Meet-in-the-Cairngorms/t12414n.html Got back to Lee Vining in March, for more of the same, looked very much like the Lee Vining ice in 2013: http://www.supertopo.com/tr/Lee-Vining-ice-brief-report-on-late-season-conditions-3-15-17-13/t11882n.html Fun, but not really enough to sate my water ice needs.

Since I had some time available and had to deliver 2 kids back to their university in Oregon after their spring break ended (and chauffeuring them to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and SF Bay cruising and touristing), I took the opportunity to divert somewhat northwards on my drive back to California. Had a great time in Canada in 2012 and wanted to get back: http://www.supertopo.com/tr/Long-ago-and-far-away-some-Canadian-ice-pics-from-February-and-April-2012/t11486n.html

Sent out some queries to potential partners and got 2 guys lined up to meet me in Canada.

We were going to have fun.

This was happening in California:


Spring break:




So while that was happening in California, here is what Will Gadd says about ice in Canada: “The lower south-facing routes are melting or melted out, and everybody wants to go rock climbing already. This is a very dynamic time of year in the Rockies, with warm days and sludge avalanches mixing with bitter cold. Starting and finishing early on south-facing larger routes is a very good idea, get 'em done before the sun slams the ice and loosens the snowpack up in the bowls above the climbs. Be very conscious of the sun in general, big releases in bowls high over the big routes are common as the day warms up, and even a small "sludge" slide can ruin your day. The first two weeks of April often produce some really good winter alpine routes, but we can also get big Pacific storms that drop a lot of moisture and last for a few days, then it takes a couple more days for the snowpack to clean up. But lots of sunny, fantastic ice climbing days still, and rock never feels as good as it does after a seaoson of swinging tools. Many Canmore locals bust down to Indian Creek.
The rock climbers are pushing the season at Bataan, Grassi and on Yam while the mixed crew is trying to finish off their projects before they melt out. The cineplex is normally done by early April. This is the best time of the year to ski in the Rockies, but everybody is getting burned out on winter.” More good info from Will Gadd here: http://www.gravsports.com/Climbing%20Stories/Climbing_Cycle.htm

Packed my gear and reference books [Jeff Lowe's “The Ice Experience” (1979), Albi Sole's book “Waterfall Ice – climbs in the Canadian Rockies” (1980), Joe Josephson's “Waterfall Ice – Climbs in the Canadian Rockies” (photocopy of a friend’s much used and annotated 2002 4th edition), and Brent Peters's new “Ice Lines – Select Waterfalls of the Canadian Rockies” (2013)]. Commenced my 1500 mile (25 plus hours) drive northwards.

Drove to the airport in Calgary to meet and pick up 1 of my partners and got the 1st hiccup on my little road trip. After hours in the "cell phone waiting area" and doing occasional laps past the arrivals baggage claim area, I learned that my new-to-me partner-to-be from S California had connecting flight issues - would perhaps arrive 24 hours later if there was passenger space available... He decided to rent a car and drive home, since it was not certain that he would get a flight the next day and since Mick, our other partner, was already waiting at the hotel in Canmore.


Since I had not climbed before with Mick, we decided over dinner to head to the relatively nearby Evan Thomas River in Kananaski Country to climb Snowline and Moonlight (each about 100m and WI 4) on April Fools Day.



We had arrived after another party of 2 who started up Moonlight. While pessimistic about the conditions on Snowline (looked too thin for much gear and awfully warm, wet, and detached), we had some time available so I started up. It was even worse than I thought it would be. With no gear below me and anemic conditions farther above, I psyched myself out and retreated when I got to a sketchy v-thread that looked like it would hold. So much for 1 of the routes I had wanted to climb and for my 1st opportunity to demonstrate some modest ability on ice to my new-to-me partner. Guess, it was too late in the season...

After the other team rapped off Moonlight we started up.


The first pitch was fun, but my partner was too spent to continue by the time he struggled into my standing-room-only-belay cave. Uh oh! He said he thought he was going to black out. He was unable to focus and was collapsing forward, cutting off his airway over my tie-in. Holy crap. Kept him upright and loudly encouraged him to focus and keep breathing. Talked with him and yelled down to the party below (who arrived after we did) to alert them of the developing situation.

Mick recovered some and was able to tell me he hadn't ever had anything like this happen to him before. Scary. He did not know what was causing his distress. I quizzed him about his drug use and medical history: none and basically healthy. After he caught his breath and said he was feeling better, I lowered him off. We hiked out accompanied by the other party after they finished the route. Insisted he was OK to drive and just needed to rest.

Decided to take it really, really easy the next day with a short approach and more moderate climbing.

Great views of the Trophy Wall from the road.


The Trophy Wall beckoned, but would have to wait. I continue to hope to someday find those ice routes fat and plastic, and maybe a grade or 2 easier than the Joe Josephson guidebook ratings of WI 5+ to 7.



I led some easy ice off to the right of the ice in the picture above and set up a top rope. Mick took a lap, admitted to not feeling recovered, and said he would belay me for as many laps as I wanted, but he was done climbing. I moved the top rope and did a few steeper laps before calling it quits so that we could hike out while he was still able.

I readily agreed that he should schedule a visit to his doctor ASAP and head home to Idaho in the morning.

Back in the motel, I sent emails to some locals I had met on previous trips and posted a partner-wanted note on Will Gadd's Gravsports ice conditions website (a very useful resource for checking on avi, access, and route conditions: http://www.gravsports-ice.com/icethreads/

Mick headed home. I moved into a smaller room at the Rundle Mountain Lodge and then headed off to Louise Falls.

53 miles and 53 minutes to the Lake Louise parking lot - pleasant and scenic drive. 31 degrees Fahrenheit.





While the ice was somewhat soft and rotten on the left side of Louise Falls, it was much better off to the right nearer the pillar. Self-belayed the uppermost 40m. A bit more exciting than top-roping steep ice in Johnston Canyon and quite fun to climb the upper part twice.

Checked my email back at the motel in the evening and the next morning. No one available, so I headed for Professor Falls which I had climbed on a couple of occasions on previous trips finding mellow ice and excellent conditions.




The uppermost pitch seemed to be steepest. Like the rest of the ice on Professor Falls, it was fat and friendly ice. Tremendously fun, too.


Professor Falls has about 210m of ice, so it took me a bunch of 30m rappels to get down. It's possible to bicycle in much of the approach on the paved road of the Fairmont Banff Springs Golf Course, if a person has a bike. I didn't. The stroll in took 1:40 and the stroll out about 1:24 - well worth the effort for the 1:18 of fun, mellow ice (and some stretches of snow hiking) on the route. Nice views, too.


Great news on the partner front. On my hike in, I met a couple of climbers who were heading out, asked about route conditions, and mentioned that I was without partner(s) and wondered if they might be available to climb during the next 2 weeks. Answers were yes and maybe. The climbers were Laurie Skestlet and Corey Feduck. Laurie is the 1st Canadian to summit Everest and was barely scooped on the first ascent of the Polar Circus. Laurie looked familiar - I had met him in 2001 at the base of Louise Falls as my partner and I were racking up. He and Sharon Wood (1st North American woman to summit Everest) had just climbed Louise Falls and hiked back down to their packs. Awesome (!) that I would be climbing with Laurie 3 days later. And Corey said he thought he might be available somewhat later.

Got some excellent news when I checked my email. J. Brent Peters (author of Ice Lines) whom I had met in 4/2012 at the Alpine Club of Canada clubhouse in Canmore might be available to climb - "bring some beers over, so we can talk and catch up.." Talked about his new guidebook (my autographed copy was back at the motel), conditions, and got suggestions for routes I might do in the several days before he and Kendra Stritch had time available for me to team up with them. They were already planning to climb Curtain Call (120m WI 6) in 4 days and invited me to join them. Heck yes!

Headed for Guinness Gully (245m Wi 4) the next day - my 5th day in Canada of getting after ice and pictures. Found good ice there in 4/2012 and got more of the same this time. It's about 68 mostly very scenic miles to Field, British Columbia and then probably less than 20 minutes of hiking to get to the base of the route.





It was well worth an uphill slog in soft snow to get to this pitch, capped by a little (10 or 15m) out-of-view ice bulge. The air temp was a bit above freezing and the snowy stretches between the icy parts was getting soft so I headed down rather than slog uphill to Guinness Stout (80m WI 4+) or High Test (60m WI 4+). Will try them someday with colder conditions and a partner.


Rapped using slings around trees, one in-situ v-thread and one v-thread which I placed. After coiling my rope and organizing my pack, the walk back down to my Pilot took about 9 minutes. A nice day out.


Spectacular views on the drive north to 2 O'Clock Falls. Here's Mt. Chephren towering above Waterfowl Lake. Avery started a really cool Supertopo thread on Mt. Chephren climbs: http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=2554087&tn=0&mr=0


2 O'Clock Falls is very mellow with 20-30m tall ice steps and curtains with lower angled ice terraces between them (100m WI 3). The waterfall is fairly broad so that several parties could climb side-by-side. Seemed like a good place for introducing friends and beginners to climbing or for learning leading skills. Did lots of laps on each of 3 steepish curtains. Several hours to drive the 110 plus miles back to Canmore.

Back to Moonlight with Laurie on my 7th day of ice.



The ice on Snowline was sparser than it had been a week earlier. Laurie had places to go and things to do, so we booked out of there after I climbed down out of the belay cave, across the headwall to the right a bit, and then up the 2nd pitch on Moonlight. Steep and plastic.

My trip so far, though losing my original 2 partners, was turning out quite well. Overnight temps had been dipping down to or just below freezing. The next day promised to fulfill one of my dreams or (some trepidation here) my nightmares. I was going to join Brent and Kendra on Curtain Call for my 8th day of Canadian ice.

In his Ice Lines guidebook, Brent quotes Jeff Lowe's comments from his 1st ascent of the route with Mike Weiss: "Out on the last lead, on the front side of the massive drapery, Mike's voice filled the chamber I was in like the utterings of the profane god that he is,. 'Holy shit' he boomed, 'the whole bottom of the climb is separated by a 10-inch gap from the top. I'll keep going, but we'll have to be careful... or this climb might be our last Curtain Call."

I met Brent and Kendra early, crawled into the back of Brent's car and, although excited about what we were going to find, fell asleep soon after Brent bought coffee for the drive north.


I awoke to see the Weeping Wall looking somewhat dessicated and weepy. The ice I was seeing was familiar, but did not look at all like Curtain Call. Call me confused. Very confused. Oh, right... the Weeping Wall pit stop. Mere minutes later we were at the trailhead for Curtain Call and hiking.


The plan: Kendra would climb the right side with Jean Gamilovski; Brent, Rick Cowburn, and I would climb up the left. Since we were 3, Rick would belay Brent and I would take lots of pics.



In what seemed like no time at all, Brent was cruising up the 1st pitch.


Brent led up to the alcove on the left and belayed Rick and me up at the same time.





The 2nd pitch looked like it was going to be even more exciting than the 1st.


I moved off to the left to position myself to take pics of Brent leading the uppermost pitch. I think my smile was even bigger than Brent's. What a great climb.


After Rick was secure, Brent took off on the 2nd pitch, but headed up inside the curtain instead of outside.


Brent disappeared and I moved to the right to join Rick at the belay. I would not be taking any more pics of Brent on this pitch. Before very long the rope went tight and Rick launched upwards.



From the belay I could not hear Brent or Rick and after a somewhat long stretch of silence and anticipation, my rope went tight. It was my turn to climb.




It was surreal in the ice cave and quiet except for my scraping crampons and some Ice tinkling down when I brushed up again icy stalactites and swung or hooked my tools.

And then, there was light. I could see the outside world through a portal in the curtain. Head for the light, follow the rope. Out into space and upwards.


The opening was perhaps 3 ft tall and 2 ft across - the 1st moves were kind of exciting with tremendous exposure below. Hooked 1 tool around an icicle near its base where it was bonded to the floor of the ice cave and, leaning out, got a decent stick with my other tool overhead in the outside ice. Wormed and slid my way out through the portal to dangle in space mostly one-armed and plant my crampon frontpoints. Dang, but was I ever having fun!


A couple of steep raps and we were down.



What an outstandingly fun climb!

I did not have any climbs in mind for the next day, but Laurie had a couple of hours available and offered to hike up Mount Yamnuska with me. A rest day with only a short drive, 5 or 6 miles of hiking, and a 2600' elevation gain. Sounded like a nice way to relax.




Brent and Kendra had plans that included me for the day after the next day. Biggish plans. So I took the next day as a rest day to move out of the motel, do some shopping and other errands like searching for mountaineering skis and bindings for my trip in the following month to Alaska to climb the Southwest Ridge on Peak 11,300'.


Moved into the living room of Brent and Kendra's apartment for a few hours. Night-time temps along the Icefields Parkway were dipping below freezing.

I crawled into my sleeping bag at 9pm and was awakened a few minutes later at midnight to head for the Polar Circus.

Joe Josephson called the 2300' Polar Circus the "showpiece of the Canadian Rockies." It's about 1600' of ice over 9 or so pitches with some potentially avalanche prone snowy sections between some of the ice pitches.

The route faces south and the overnight temps had been hovering around freezing (on the wrong side), so we wanted to get up the route and down off of it as quickly as possible. No argument: Brent would lead, having done the route, knowing the locations of the fixed belay/rap anchors, and being an incredibly competent and strong ice climber. Kendra would belay. I would take pics. Seemed like a great plan.






We made good time with Brent racing ahead of us and then belaying both Kendra and me at the same time.






Such fun and solid partners!




Brent belayed Kendra and me up separately on the last pitch. These two climbers are strong, efficient, fast, and a lot of fun to climb with, so we were soon rapping the steeps and hiking down the snowy (avi prone) sections. Big fun and huge smiles.




We were down before the sun started cooking the route - about 8.5 hours car-to-car. Another fantastic day with Brent and Kendra. Another route of my dreams.

Lots of good pitch by pitch beta, more pics (taken by others), and other info at coldthistle, mountainproject, and summitpost

We were back in Canmore in the very early afternoon. I moved into the Canadian Alpine Club clubhouse and arranged to meet Rick Cowburn and a friend of his from Calgary in the morning. He wanted to lead Professor Falls. I had already climbed it the week before, but it is a fun route and would be fun to climb with partners.


Got a pre-dawn text message - it was raining as they left Calgary and they were turning around, bailing. Dang.

I drove over to the trailhead for Professor Falls anyway to make some guesses about the condiitons. There were a few inches of new snow on the ground at the trailhead to Professor Falls, so rather than worry myself about the potential accumulation of too much snow in the basin above Professor, I headed for Louise Falls - been there, done it, found it to be consistently and predictably fun, with relatively little avi hazard.





Corey Feduck was available to climb the next day. Thought we would check out and climb Spray River Falls above Banff. In Brent's Ice Lines, Mike Barter is quoted, "The approach weeds out the weak and the sick." Ouch! Corey and I postholed around on the approach for too long and then we headed for another climb he really wanted to lead: Louise Falls.


Easy approach, steep, reliable ice, for what was to be, ahem, my 3rd time on this route on this visit to Canada and 2nd time in 2 days. Familiarity was not breeding contempt - Louise Falls was going to be fun to climb with a partner.



On following day (my 14th), Kendra and I climbed Bear Spirit (20m WI 3-4) east of Banff the following day. About 21 miles from Canmore and with a relatively short approach. I did a short lead and set up a top rope so we could run some laps.



After Bear Spirit, I headed north along the Icefields Parkway and then east on the David Thompson Highway again. I had already moved out of the Canadian Alpine Clubhouse and planned to camp (sleep in my Pilot) the next couple of nights. In the morning, I met Kendra, Brent, and their friend Janette Heung from Boulder for a couple of climbs: the End of the Line (100m WI 4) and Lovely Parting Gifts (65m WI 3). Fitting names for the last climbs I'd do on this little road trip.



Learned the next morning that I had slept through an eclipse of the moon - oops.



While the ice over the creek was late-season-slushy and too thin to support me at times, I managed to only punch through it where the creek was shallow.

Hiking and some 3rd classing got us to the end of the box canyon.



While Janette led the End of the Line with Kendra belaying, Brent and I climbed Lovely Parting Gifts.









Fun, fun, fun conditions and the ice sounded so good (suggestion: when you view the following video short clip, do it in full-screen mode with the sound on).

[Click to View YouTube Video]



Rapped, hiked out, and said our good byes. Brent, Kendra, and Janette headed back to Canmore. I headed back to my camp.


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Caught a shower at the hostel at Lake Louise and continued my tens of hours and almost 1400 miles of driving home.


All in a all a pretty, wonderfully fun trip. Bummed that I lost 2 partners early on (especially bummed for them since the ice conditions were good on the routes I did), but so very fortunate to have Laurie Skreslet, Corey Feduck, Janette Heung, Rick, Cowburn, Kendra Stritch, and Brent Peters as climbing partners for my Canadian ice climbs. Thanks to all of them for sharing some of their time with me to climb.

While YOU may find wildly different conditions if you go to Alberta seeking late season ice, I was fortunate and found (as Will Gadd suggested was possible) good conditions on:
Moonlight (both times a week apart; although Snowline looked more sun bleached and detached on my 2nd time there)
Johnston Canyon ice (warm with lots of direct sun)
Louise Falls (all three times, eh)
Professor Falls
Guinness Gully
2 O'Clock Falls
Curtain Call
Polar Circus
Bear Spirit
Lovely Parting Gifts
End of the Line

Thanks checking out the pics and this trip report - I hope you enjoyed the views and thanks again to my partners!