Raphael Slawinski

When I first heard about Helmcken Falls like a lot of people I focused on the number. Will Gadd and Tim Emmett, who pioneered the first route on the overhanging spray ice in the cave behind the falls, gave it the unprecedented WI10 grade. Knowing Will (and having since come to know Tim) I did not doubt the difficulty of the climbing, but I questioned to what extent a bolt-protected route up some icicles dripping from the ceiling of a cave could be called an ice climb. Whenever people asked me when I would go and check the place out, I answered that while it was undoubtedly very cool, I had better things to do, thank you very much. It was not until last month that I finally made the long drive to Wells Gray Provincial Park. There were a few other people going, so I figured at the very least it would be a fun social time. And it was January in the Rockies, not exactly prime time for going high. The waterfall looked big from the viewpoint, but it was not until I stood on the spray cone ...

There is something ugly and industrial about drytooling. To begin with there is the fact that one does not experience the rock directly, with one's hands and feet, but through metal tools. The scraping of steel on stone is something one might expect to hear on a factory floor, not in a quiet wintry valley. Even the movement is somehow angular and mechanical, not fluid and organic like in rock climbing. And yet there is something compelling about drytooling - perhaps as compelling as Chouinard's runaway locomotive. The Jimmy Skid Rig (TJSR), a route that enjoyed some notoriety on Rockies' Internet bulletin boards three years back , is a nice example of the good, bad and ugly sides of drytooling. Last month I finally got past the route's initial hype and subsequent obscurity and actually experienced it for myself. It did not happen by design. Jon Walsh and I left the city at an uncivilized hour to wrap up a project on the Headwall. Two hours later we pulled into the St...

The expression could refer to any number of things. For example, it could refer to a fine if rather obscure route on the right side of the Upper Weeping Wall. I suppose it could also refer to the obvious culprits: cigarettes, drink, religion... Or, it could refer to some of the SNAFUs on the list below. It being the start of a new year I found myself thinking of things I could do better on ice. The accompanying stories and photos are all from the current ice climbing season. Two months down, four more to go! Swinging away on Nasty Habits , Upper Weeping Wall. Photo: Steve Holeczi. Dressing too lightly in November. A warm chinook wind buffeted Jen, Richard and me as we rode our mountain bikes along the Banff golf course access road. It promised to be a warm day on T2 , the mixed version of the classic Terminator . But when we emerged from the forest below the T-Wall, we were met by a howling gale that, in spite of the moderate temperatures, felt anything but warm. Only a few days ea...

One of the cool things about playing in one's home mountain range is going back to familiar places and seeing them in a new light. Like, say, tiptoeing up delicate mixed ground and thin ice right next to the massive Weeping Pillar. Contrived? You could say so. Fun? You bet! 2008. Eamonn Walsh and I took a few days off and went on a little road trip up the Parkway. Our friend Dana Ruddy was away, but that did not stop us from crashing in his basement in Jasper. From there on the first day we climbed "No Use In Crying" , an unlikely four-pitch line well left of the Upper Weeping Wall. On the second we took care of some unfinished business on the left margin of Curtain Call, calling the result "Cyber Pasty Memorial" in honour of a perennially untanned friend who had recently given up ice climbing. On the third we headed back up to the Upper Weeping Wall to try a line to the right of Weeping Pillar we had spotted two days earlier. The first pitch went up an intimid...