Raphael Slawinski

It was the usual evening-before text exchange: "What do you want to climb tomorrow?" "I'm not sure... How about Route X?" Both Mate Man and I had done the route in question before. In fact, over the years I'd climbed it when it was fat, skinny and downright mixed. However, just because you've visited a place already doesn't make it any less beautiful. I always liked the way the ice on Route X started out in a twisting canyon before rearing up to a vertical pillar, shining in the sun high above the valley floor. As I threw some quickdraws, screws and, just in case, a few pins into the pack, the only thing that gave me pause was the forecast for high winds. Route X sits below a sizeable bowl, and as I drifted off to sleep, I thought of the fresh snow from the last few days blowing around and settling into a slab. Then again, we could just glass the mountain from road and decide in the morning... *** From the parking lot, the bo...

Take 1. From a distance, the ice blobs looked inviting; the featureless rock between them, less so. I wonder if we're wasting our time, I thought, as Seth and I ploughed a ski track through facetted snow, the straps of packs loaded down with ropes, cams, pins – and drill – pulling at our shoulders. Given enough time and bolts you can get up anything, but we didn't want what Steve DeMaio called a science project. We wanted a line, something we could walk up to and (mostly) just climb. Unfortunately, the limestone, shining grey and yellow in the morning light, looked depressingly blank. But another one of Steve’s sayings was that you’ve just got to rub your nose in it. And sure enough, as we got closer, switchbacking up the slope below the cliff through patches of kinnikinnick and drifts of wind-crusted snow, as if by magic cracks and corners appeared. Seth quickly dispatched the first pitch, a curtain of sun-baked ice, and I started up the second. A horizontal shuffle a...

I don't have a good feel for the Fahrenheit scale but I do know that negative temperatures are cold. Down in town, the car thermometer read around twenty degrees and the early morning air felt almost balmy on my face. However, as we drove up Hyalite Canyon, it started plummeting, finally bottoming out below zero. The inside of the car was cozy but I could imagine the almost liquid chill on the other side of the glass. I know, ice climbing is supposed to be cold. But I'm soft, and especially when there's mixed climbing involved, with the attendant pulling and locking off, I like more moderate temperatures. There was nothing for it though. Between clinics on the weekend and final exams at the university later in the week, I had just today to go climbing. Sometimes it's motivating to be on a schedule, as there's no coming back another day. After twenty minutes' walking we located an old boot track heading steeply up to the left. After a few more minutes we eve...

Friday. Squish, squish went the windshield wipers. The mountains played hide and seek behind soggy clouds as we drove west on the TransCanada through steady rain. Other that maybe in Scotland, rain and mixed climbing don't go together well. Still, "Storm Creek's a lot higher. This'll turn to snow by the time we get up there", I said confidently. A couple of hours later we were gearing up at the base of the rock. The wall above us glistened black and wet. Even though we were now hundreds of metres above the highway, the rain continued to slash down. "Hmm, do you think these conditions are actually dangerous?" "Nah, the terrain above us is pretty steep. Not dangerous, just gross." And then the ultimate argument: "And we're already here..." Fortunately the first couple of ropelengths didn't involve any ice, just snowed up, slippery rock. Halfway up the second pitch I took off my gloves to wring them out. Then I ...

Next month will be twenty-four years since I first climbed the north face of Athabasca. There are far bigger and harder ice faces in the Rockies, but that particular shield of snow and ice, capped by a layered cake of rotten limestone, has got to be the most classic. The glacier-draped north aspect of the peak adorns countless postcards, but the view of it driving south on the Parkway is no less sublime for that.  Erol Altay, with whom I took some of my first steps on vertical ice in the city-park like surroundings of Starved Rock two hours west of Chicago, had flown west for a couple of weeks. We kicked off his trip in rock shoes on Yamnuska, changed into crampons for the Ice Bulge on the north face of Fay, then headed up the Parkway intent on Athabasca. Back in 1995 Rockies’ ice faces were still a reasonable proposition in August, not the ugly, scarred things they tend to become by late summer these days.  Plastic boots and Footfangs on our feet, Pulsars in our han...