We kept an eye on the weather these past few days and decided that today was a good time to head up to do this climb that we have wanted to do since the start of the ice climbing season. We needed a day below freezing with cloud cover to keep the avalanche risk low since temperatures have been hovering above freezing lately. Pat and I left Banff at 0450h and parked along the Icefields parkway in front of some tracks heading up to the climb. We bypassed the lower rambling ice by following tracks up a steep slope on the left to save some time. We wanted to get the climb done in good time since the avalanche risk could pose a thread if the south facing slopes above received sun (possible cornices could fall). We geared beside the first WI4 pitch where we were well protected in an overhanging rock band. Pat and I decided to solo up this 20m pitch and found some sun baked ice that often “dinner plated” off as we tried getting our tools into the ice. We then walked up a wide snow gully for about 200m to solo the second pitch which was WI3 for 30m. The ice was nicer here and fairly hooked out. Another 150m snow gully brought us to another pitch of WI2-3 for 20m. We then followed tracks that contoured right around a rock band and came back left crossing a snow slope to reach the last 3 tiers of the climb. I led the first tier (WI4) and stretched the 70m rope to reach the top of it and a bolted belay on the right of the next tier. Pat led next on a WI4 pitch that required me to simul-climb a 20m to reach the next bolted belay. This brought us to the last and harder tier. By now the clouds where thinning out and the sun was starting to warm things up. Not good! We decided to keep going considering we were doing good time and ended up having to do the last tier in two pitches. I led the first on WI5 ice which didn’t show any signs of traffic. I made a belay on screws and Pat led the rest to the top (WI4+) where he found a bolted belay on the right. During the last tier I had kept an eye on the temperature and it had risen from -4 to 0 degrees Celsius in the shade. We were getting set to rappel together on each strand of rope to save time. All of a sudden we heard a loud crash which seemed nearby and while our hearts sank into our throats and after letting a “Holly fuck!” we started zipping down from the exposed top of the climb to a safer ice cave below. It was most likely an avalanche which slid not too far away. Not good news considering we still had 7 rappels to get down. We decided to keep going and rappelled again to reach the bottom of the last tier and two more rappels brought us to the bottom of the last three tiers. We quickly walked around the snow slope which was fortunately still in the shade and made it to the bolted belay station where we again simul-rappelled down. Two more made for a total of seven rappels to reach our packs and the safer overhanging rock band. When we got to our packs I noticed that something had gone through my pack spreading a few items around it with the zippers pulled open. I figured it had been a pesky raven since I had heard that they are able to open up pack zippers and are quite smart. I don’t think I ended up getting anything stolen and fortunately I had clipped my keys onto the pack since they had been pulled on and were hanging out. A quick otter slide down the remaining slopes of the walkout and a short stroll saw us to the van in one piece.
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| The top tier. |
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