Ice Climbing
Trip Start
Feb 16, 2011
1
78
113
Trip End
Jun 11, 2012
Canmore, Alberta, Canada
Friday, January 13, 2012
I was supposed to go Ice Climbing last month, but I ended up missing the bus so luckily I was able to reschedule my outing to today. The course I did was called Introduction to Ice Climbing through Banff Life and I picked up my ice climbing boots and met the group at the Community Hub at 8am. My friend Kylie was the only person I knew there, but there were a few other people from around the town. We drove out past the Canmore Nordic Centre to Grassi Lake and had a short walk to the base of the frozen waterfall. Here we put on our helmets, harness and ice crampons and walked halfway up the narrow path to the mustering point. We dropped off our bags and waited for our guides to climb up and set the guide ropes.
The view was pretty spectacular from the bottom of the climbing wall and we were given a safety instruction on how to tie our knots and hook into the belay. I partnered up with Simon from Manchester and I made the first climb up with him guiding me on the rope. I didn't go up too far because I was just practicing using the ice axes and digging in with the crampons. He lowered me down and we unclipped and swaped so that I would be picking up the slack on the rope as he climbed. It didn't take much effort to lower him back down one he had reached the top.
We made 2 or 3 more runs each before breaking for some lunch which consisted of beef jerky, salad sandwiches and hot chocolate. The weather was hovering around -8 degrees Celsius so it wasn't too bad, but after lunch the wind picked up a little bit blowing all the loose snow into our faces.
On the last climb, Kylie and I decided to have a race up to the top and so we started making up some pace. I wasn't paying attention as to how she was going so when I reached the top and looked around, I saw she was only halfway up still. I started getting lowered down, but when I reached Kylie's position my right crampon came off my boot which caused me to swing around and face out. I scratched my right leg with my left crampon a little, but other than that I was fine and Simon lowered me back down while still facing out. I took a few minutes to recover once I was on the bottom.
It was time to call it quits so I put my crampon back on and we hiked back down to the bottom with all the gear. We only had to wait 10 minutes for the minivan to come and pick us up for the ride home. Ice climbing was definitely a new experience for me and I would definitely like to try it again if I get the opportunity.
