Holiday Ice Climbing

I hope you all had a great holiday season and are busy planning climbing trips for the year! On top of all the visiting & eating, I have had a few great days of ice climbing with guests from around the world.

Just before Christmas, Shawn & Miluska flew in from Texas and joined me for a fun day at King Creek. Shawn has climbed with me lots before, but it was Miluska's first time and she did great. On her first try she was able to make it to the top of the first route, and continued to improve throughout the day. Shawn hadn't ice climbed since last year, but after a couple warm-up laps was able to get right back into leading and led 3 different routes throughout the day.

Miluska on one of her first ice climbs at King Creek.

After New Years, I drove down to Jasper to join Uday & Leanne for two days of ice climbing. Uday is originally from India but now lives in the UK, and Leanne is from BC but now lives in Switzerland. Neither of them had ice climbed before, but picked it up quickly and had lots of fun. For our first day we went into Maligne Canyon, which is a beautiful spot to climb near town. After rappelling into the base, we spent the day climbing up & down and working on technique.

Leanne climbing in Maligne Canyon near Jasper.

The Queen in beautiful Maligne Canyon.

The next day we headed down the Icefields Parkway to the climb Melt Out near theColumbia Icefields. The weather was absurdly warm and it was even raining at the Icefields! However, the rain soon stopped and we had a great day climbing on the lower pitch of Melt Out.

Melt Out, a nice WI3 ice climb near the Columbia Icefields.

Uday on Melt Out.

After a long drive back to Canmore (the Parkway was closed so I had to drive almost to Edmonton then down to Canmore!), Andrew joined me yesterday for a great day of ice climbing on Guinness Gully near Field. Andrew was visiting Canmore from Nova Scotia where he ice climbs & rock climbs regularly. It was another very warm day, and it made for very pleasant climbing up the route. We both had lots of fun and Andrew left psyched to try and move to the Rockies as soon as possible!

Andrew near the top of Guinness Gully.

J. Mills

CRAG Head Guide

www.cdnalpine.com