 Ice like I’d never seen
it. Thick, blue, steep ice just waiting for you.
Chandeliers, mushrooms and free-standing pencils. As the
youth said, it sure was “real intense”.Sometimes Maria’s certainty makes me feel quite mercurial. Unconvinced we should take ice gear on a skiing trip, I found the guide to Rockies waterfall climbs in a Matlock bookshop and was an instant convert. Axes, ropes and crampons were squeezed into our ski-bags, and the ironmongery triggered airport searches. There’s only a small downside with heading for Canada, and that’s the jet lag. Pointing an oh-so-smooth cruise-controlled compact out of Calgary down a wide, straight road through the rim of the prairies, fighting with body time and running into the long loping curves as we reached the mountains. Everywhere new that you go it takes time to build the right filters - that is, what’s important, and what can be switched out. Canmore is just a little town on th edge of the National Park, but it took us a couple of laps round the centre peering at signposts before we found the road out to the Junkyards. A mile or so south there’s a small hydro plant, very like the Cwm Dyli turbine, but sat in much bigger mountains. Snook into the parking, gear up, and amble over to a roadside icefall. For the Carnmore Junkyards, visualise a steep hillside, dotted with pine trees and rock outcrops, and pour ice down it to taste. Mix with blue skies, and set amongst alpine peaks with tails of spindrift blowing from their summits and you’ve a pretty fine cocktail. A tasty route here is the ‘Scottish Gully’, leaving a cave belay to take a steep icefall for 10 metres before easing off into a series of shorter steps running up alongside a rock wall. But, the most adrenaline-filled, pumpy kind of action came from top-roping a vertical curtain of icicles where the water seeped down from the top of an overhang. And after that, back to the coffee house in Banff for blackberry crumble and extra-large capuccinos. Compared with a typical Scottish venture, the Rockies seem to be Sybaritic City. Laid-back restaurants with good food, late starts and short walk-ins. The other ice-climbing venue we hit was Johnsons Canyon. About 3km along walkways through a narrow ravine, a real tourist honeypot in summer, takes you to the Upper Falls, an amphitheatre laced with icefalls - including a free-standing 30m column about 2m in diameter that was totally out of order. It’s always good to leave something to come back for, so instead we tackled the Prism Falls, where the ice is streaked in a mix of blues through whites to browns.
The route starts with a climbing-wall style horizontal solo on axes round the edge of a deep pool scoured out by the waterfall to reach an ice screw belay at the bottom of the climb. Moving up next proved harder than I’d expected. The initial steps were built up of layers of thin mushrooms, not steep but quite insubstantial. Higher up the route moved into the sun, the ice improved and reared up towards the vertical. Pulling over bulges, bridging up a steep corner, to reach the last few metres, dinner plates of ice crashing downwards, the arms burning to get it over with, the brain trying to manage the fear, not to rush, making sure every placement was solid. Suddenly then into horizontal territory, belaying on ice at the side of the stream. All quiet, apart from the trickling water. Logistics: Getting There We took a flight out to Calgary, the usual 9 or so hours across the Atlantic, on a fly-drive ski package. The alternative is to go all the way to Vancouver (ask Bob for details on this) Centres The main places are Banff (right in the Rockies National Park, very much a skiing town), Canmore (on the edge of the Rockies, probably a cheaper spot), and Jasper (better for the northern end) Skiing Sunshine Valley and Lake Louise are the main centres, also Mount Norquay and Nakiska are good venues. None of these are as big as the typical French ski areas, so it’s good to have the option of picking a day here and a day there - they’re all within about an hour’s drive of Banff. Off-piste, there are lots of 1-days ski trails to go at, and more serious expeditions Information
Gear Magic Mountain and Monod Sports are the two main places to find gear in Banff. |
