Chasing Early Season Ice in Canada: Part 3

Hiking in to Borgeau Left-Hand. A popular moderate route in the Canadian Rockies near Banf Alberta.

Day 3

After two somewhat unsuccessful days, JJ and I were eager to get to the top of something. We decided to “lower our standards, and up our average” as my highschool baseball coach once taught me. We knew for certain from the local conditions report that an easier route named Bourgeau Left-Hand would be in condition to climb.

We start the day out with high hopes. The hike begins at a popular ski area, and we find ourselves gearing up with a different breed of extreme sports enthusiasts. I feel a little out of place in my tight “euro style” soft shell climbing pants, as everybody else is wearing baggy pants, and decorated with hilarious items like pink snowboard boots and tall tees with golden letters and rapper’s faces. To each their own I suppose… there was a time not too many years ago when I might have been found slinging a snowboard around and looking for the nearest terrain park myself, but I can’t help but laugh at the contrast between styles of the two very different winter sports.

The approach goes quickly. We hike past a sign that warns us of potential explosives that have not yet been detonated in the area. We laugh at this, but walk by it. I assume there is not real danger of coming across such a thing, but maybe there is? Anyway we didn’t see any, and we reach the climb in less then an hour. Unfortunately, our overconfidence towards this route kept us from leaving the house at a reasonable time in the morning, and there are already several parties on this popular moderate climb. “They are moving so slow!” JJ complains. I dismiss his comment, we should have been prepared to get stuck behind other parties on such an easily accessible climb.

After hanging out around the base for an hour or so, the party in front us finally reaches the top of the first pitch of three. The first pitch is quite long, and we aren’t sure if our rope will reach, as it is only a 60 meter rope. The party in front of us informs us that they barely made it with a 70 meter rope. With this information in mind, we realize we will need to split the first pitch up into 2 pitches. No problem, that will give the party ahead of us time to but some distance between us. I belay JJ on the first pitch for about 15 meters, when I notice JJ is putting in multiple screws as if to build an anchor.

“What are you doing?!” I ask. This doesn’t make sense, I expected him to try and break the pitch up at least somewhat evenly.

“Building an anchor” he replies in his Polish accent that still cracks me up every time. Oh well… I shrug it off, it will still be an easy second pitch for me to lead. I climb up and meet him at his hanging belay station that is laughably close to the ground. We swap gear and I start up the second pitch. Since JJ used 4 screws on the anchor, I have to climb the next pitch, spacing the protection out with long distances in between, resulting in potential for a very long fall. It isn’t a hard pitch so I’m not concerned of falling, so this is totally not a big deal, but I noted this in my mental list of ways to poke fun at JJ later.

I climb my pitch, and a party is rappelling to the right of us as I do so. They were kind enough to not rappel directly down the route, which would result in a shower of icicles raining down on me and smashing my helmet as I’m trying to lead. I ask for a little information as to what the belay station is like that I am climbing to, and find out that it is a bolted belay… but they say I won’t have enough rope to get there. I’m thinking to myself there is no way I am going to let this single pitch turn into 3 pitches, that would be absurdly amateurish. JJ is just going to have to start simul climbing if I run out of rope I think. This turns out to be unnecessary and I make it to the belay station with just barely enough rope.

This pitch ends in a little gully, with a nice cave at the top in which we hang out and snack on various mountain treats; energy chews, cliff bars, and some fruit leather. We are waiting for the party in front of just to finish the last pitch so we can start climbing it. Fortunately the other party bailed, so we only have one group in front of us now. With one pitch down and two left, the day is turning out much more successful then yesterday!

The party ahead tops out, and prepares to rappel. We decided it will be ok at this point to begin climbing. JJ starts up the low angled second to last pitch, which raps up and around the gulley on deep blue, easy ice. It is dripping wet on account of the just barely freezing temperatures, but this is ok, we will be able to climb this portion quickly. After about half an hour, JJ indicates that he has built an anchor, and is ready to belay me up.

I cruise up the pitch that JJ lead, and reach his “anchor.”

“What the hell is this?” I ask. JJ has just belayed me up off a single screw, equalized to his ice tool. The ice tool doesn’t even have a place to clip a carabiner to because it is for high end competition dry tooling. This means he simply hooked the carabiner to the finger rest on the end.

“What do you mean. Its a good anchor!” He laughs.

“Just keep me on belay I’m gonna keep climbing. I trust myself climbing more then I trust your anchor.” I respond shaking my head. This easier route has given JJ a ridiculous sense of cockiness. I’m not concerned, but I am definitely eager to climb a bit and put another piece of gear in the ice.

I lead out on the last pitch. The ice is amazing! The deep blue color indicates that it has been seeing healthy thaw and refreeze cycles, making it very stable and strong. Water is dripping over it very slightly too which makes it very easy to sink ice tools in the entire way, burying the picks to the head of the tool. We call this type of ice “hero ice” because it makes the climber feel like a superhero while she/he is climbing. It definitely was making me feel strong today, and it felt good to finally get on something cruiser after a couple days of getting our egos crushed.

I clipped a screw as quickly as I could after leaving JJ’s sketchy looking belay station

Enjoying cruiser Hero Ice as I near the top of our first successful ice route of the trip

I top out the route. Savoring this moment. It is easy to get to the top of something sometimes and just immediately transition into figuring out how to get down. I have been working on taking a moment at the top of each route, trying to soak in the beauty of where I am. I definitely plan on coming back here, but there is always a chance that other life stuff could get in the way and I won’t. So I focus on the positives about the route, the companionship that I am building with JJ. And most importantly what I am learning. Every time we go out I am getting more experience, learning how to read ice, when to take breaks, and when to push through hard sections to gain rests. There is so much to learn, and ice is amazing in that no two routes are the same. Even when you climb the same route twice, it will never be the same because the ice, water, and wind that formed it are different each time. I would probably say that I am primarily a rock climber because that is what I do most of the year. But I love ice climbing, like a lot. It is so gorgeous. I am blown away by the fact that humans are able to climb up these delicate looking icicles with relative safety. It is really quite incredible.

With our egos a little bit reinflated, we will see how tomorrow goes. Our plan? Not really sure...

To be continued...