Murdering the Impossible

""Impossible": it doesn't exist anymore." - Reinhold Messner

Saddam's Insane

As I hooked and stepped up the cauliflowered pedestal at the top of the first pitch, the dagger at the start of the second hung over my head like the sword of Damocles. From lower on the pitch, it had been distant enough that I worried more about blunting my picks on the thinnish ice at the breakover than about the tons of frozen water looming overhead. But now that I stood right below the dagger, and saw that it failed to connect with its base by mere centimetres, I took great care not to bump it. I tried to pound in some pitons for a belay safely off to the side, but the notorious Kananaskis rock, which somehow manages to be both compact and chossy at the same time, wouldn't take even a knifeblade. In the end, I had no choice but to place a couple of screws directly below the dagger, and to call this unsatisfactory arrangement the anchor.

I read somewhere you should never climb a piece of ice you're afraid to stand under. It sounds obvious and reasonable, but it's funny how easy it can be to ignore this simple piece of wisdom. After I'd belayed Rob up to our stance under the dagger, we turned our attention upward. And the most obvious thing to do was to hop on the dagger. After all, it was almost all there: it wouldn't take extreme gymnastics, just a gentle touch, to get established on the hanging ice. But nearly twenty years ago I'd been lucky to walk away when the giant fang of Suffer Machine collapsed, with me riding it like Captain Ahab the whale. It's not the kind of experience you forget easily, and recalling it helped the voice of reason prevail. Sort of, anyway.

In his 1971 essay The Murder of the Impossible, Messner writes that he's "... ready for anything - even for retreat, if I meet the impossible." Well, the sun was shining, the day was still young, and I didn't want to bail just yet. I began by exploring some options to the right, but nothing looked very appealing. After twenty minutes of fruitless poking around, I rejoined Rob below the dagger. Now it so happened that Saddam was our plan B. Plan A had been an icy chimney I'd spied a couple of years earlier and hoped might be in this season. It wasn't but as a result, in addition to a useless rack of cams and nuts, I'd also brought my courage in the form of a handful of self-drives. I did feel a twinge of guilt as I prepared to add bolts to what was, after all, an established route. However, hanging uncomfortably from a tool driven behind a creaky flake, tap-tap-tapping away, I soon forgot my misgivings.

Four bolts and a pin later, I figured I had enough of a life support system in place in case the dagger decided to do anything untoward. Ever the sport climber, I lowered back to the belay, pulled the rope, and went for the pinkpoint. It wasn't very hard, as after just a few dry moves you could snag the ice. The dagger vibrated slightly as I swung gingerly into it, but it was obviously more solid than my imagination had made it out to be. Soon I was safely past the likely fracture line, cruising the chandeliered ice above. Rob had the worst of it on the follow, his hands freezing repeatedly after a long, chilly belay.

The first flurries of the incoming cold front swirled around as I stood tethered to a couple of screws just below where the ice ran out. As I retreated into the hood of my belay jacket, I thought again about Messner. In his essay he offers that "... if anyone wants to come with me, we'll go to the top together on the routes we can do without branding ourselves murderers." Four protection bolts were nothing next to the bolted aid direttissimas he was railing against. Still, good old Reinhold had a point: not every bit of the vertical world had to be made climbable in reasonable safety. Sometimes, out of self-respect if nothing else, we ought to leave a line unclimbed. Did I enrich Saddam's Insane by adding a mixed variation to it, or did I mar the severe beauty of a serious ice climb with my bolts? I wasn't sure.

Aladdin Sane, M4 WI5

FA: Raphael Slawinski and Robert Smith, December 3, 2016

This is a minor mixed variation to the second pitch of Saddam's Insane. Climb rock behind the dagger past 4 bolts and a fixed pin. The climbing will be harder if the pillar's broken off, while in fat years the bolts will likely be covered in ice.

A beautiful, complex peak, Mt. Kidd hides all kinds of icy bounty in its bowls and gullies.

Rob enjoys December sun at the base of the first pitch of Saddam's Insane...

... and looks on from below the icicles at the start of the second, as I search for alternatives to the hanging dagger. Photo: Robert Smith.

Master of Puppets

Flipping through photos on the Parks Mountain Safety Facebook page, I came across one of the Weeping Wall. I hadn't been up the Parkway since May, so I paused to examine the image more closely. There was the usual ice on Weeping Pillar and the routes to its right, but what caught my eye was the line on the left. Master of Puppets hadn't formed in a dozen years. To quote from my 2004 AAJ Rockies summary:

"In December [2003 Chris] Delworth and [Dave] Marra snagged the first ascent of Master of Puppets (160m WI6). Two rope lengths of moderate ice lead to the most striking feature of the route, a slender freestanding pillar. From the top of the pillar another pitch of steep ice leads to the top of the wall. This exceptional line saw numerous ascents before the crux pillar fell off during an early February heat wave. [Guy] Lacelle said it was among the ten best ice routes he has done - high praise indeed!"

Steve Swenson and I were among the numerous parties that did the route before its premature demise. The early January sun, barely clearing the ridges across the valley, had shone through the translucent crux curtain. I had tapped my way behind it with nothing but air around me. I had felt like I was floating, weightless, the rock wall so far away that it might as well not have been there at all. But I had known this weightlessness to be an illusion, and had waited until turning the corner to where the ice attached to the rock before sinking the first screw.

This season the crux pillar wasn't there, the ice terminating abruptly in a sharp fracture at the lip of the overhang. And that's precisely what had me excited, as it promised scratching around, gymnastics and uncertainty high above the valley floor. With an iffy combination of windslab sitting on top of facets in the alpine, staying below treeline seemed wise. And so, with the unformed pillar for motivation, Juan and I made plans for a mini road trip to the Weeping Wall just before New Year's. Even though I gave Ian fair warning that this was a construction project, he decided to join us on the first day.

Fine snow sifted out of a low, grey sky. We ran up Snivelling Gully to save time, but between a mid-morning start, trail breaking to the Upper Wall and brittle ice on the approach pitches, it was already two o'clock by the time we stood below the bare rock of the crux. Giant ice blocks littering the ledge were all that remained of the unformed pillar. Making light of Ian's razzing about sticking bolts into a route on Guy's top ten list, surgeon-like, I made my preparations: blunt working pick on a tool, crampons off, aiders clipped to the back of the harness, drill on a sling over the shoulder. Less than an hour later, I was lowering from a bolt below the broken edge of what remained of the crux curtain. Juan had a run at the line, prying off loose edges and blocks ranging in size from nail clippings to toasters, before fading light told us it was time to head down.

The sun hit us at the first belay on the Upper Wall. It had cleared overnight, and the morning sky was a pale blue instead of yesterday's grey. It was also noticeably colder, and I eagerly turned my face to the east, blinking in the bright sunshine. This time it wasn't even noon when we made it to the ledge.

"We'll be home early", I thought.

And we might've been, had a sizeable edge not crumbled just below the ice roof, sending me for a whipper and nailing Juan in the shoulder. Our next few goes all ended lower, as we scraped more and more useable holds off the wall.

"On the next go, do you want to continue to the top no matter what?", Juan suggested.

I disliked the thought of leaving the pitch unsent, but with the afternoon wearing on, I could see his point. Fortunately on our failed attempts we'd cleaned enough looseness that, a few minutes later, I was reaching over the ice roof, still on redpoint. Strangely, the pillar had snapped off below where it attached to the rock, and the bottom couple of metres hung free. Hmm... I hooked up the lacy ice above, trying to decide where it might be safe to place my first screw. Perversely, a part of me was glad when I saw the fracture line and realized that, screw or not, if the hanging curtain let go now, with my rope running underneath it, things would go badly for me either way. Even with all the bolts, the climb still had some sting left.

Almost ten years ago I went on a traditional tear at the Stanley Headwall, climbing some new ground on natural gear and repeating existing lines without clipping any of the bolts. It wasn't that I was against bolts. As I wrote afterwards, "Bolts can open up fantastic terrain, allowing us to play with gravity on big overhangs and big daggers. However, bolts should add to the adventure, not diminish it." Perhaps on Master of Puppets, I hadn't eliminated all uncertainty and murdered the impossible altogether. If you head up there, let me know.

Dance Dictator, M7+ WI5+

FA: Juan Henriquez and Raphael Slawinski, December 30, 2016

This is the mixed variation to the crux pitch of Master of Puppets. Climb 2 pitches of moderate ice to a comfortable ledge littered with giant ice blocks. The mixed crux climbs the back rock wall past 9 bolts, with a combination of big moves and delicate hooking. Pull over the ice overhang and continue to a belay behind the upper pillar. Finish up steep, chandeliered ice to the top.

The drytooling is well protected, but if the hanging curtain were to break with you on it and your rope underneath it, the outcome wouldn't be pretty.

Master of Puppets (minus the crux pillar), with the rest of the Upper Weeping Wall behind it.

Juan tries to warm his fingers on the first pitch on our first, stormy day up there...

... and cruises sunny ice on the second pitch on our second day.

Mts. Andromeda and Athabasca framed in the V of the North Saskatchewan River valley.

Yours truly gets down to some grubby construction work on the missing link pitch on the first day... Photo: Ian Welsted.

... and reaps the rewards on the second. Photo: Juan Henriquez.

Juan raps down over the ice roof, while sunset paints the sky the delicate pink of late December.