Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Ice wall climb? Check
BANFF, Alberta — I’m not even halfway up an ephemeral ice wall in Banff National Park before I find myself, quite literally, on a slippery slope.
I’ve come to this unspoiled spot to take a stab at ice climbing, but I’m beginning to feel like some reject from the Marvel Universe with my hands and feet sporting spiky weapons that I’m not quite sure how to use.
“Kick your crampon into the ice like you’re angry,” my teacher, Larry Shiu, screams from down below.
I do as I’m told, and frozen water crystals tumble into the riverbed. My newly firm attachment means I’m now closer to the radiator-like wall, but I refuse to let the finger-tingling temperature get to me. I need to focus on the task at hand: hook my ice ax into a higher perch and continue my vertical march upward.
My journey into — and up — this stunning canyon began a few days back with a flight to Calgary. It took a 75-mile drive west to find the Canada of lore, where toothy Rocky Mountain peaks poke out over evergreen forests and fairytale turquoise lakes.
Banff is Canada’s oldest national park and a playground for climbers, boasting dozens of pristine ice routes, most of which are easily accessed from local roads.
The sport’s popularity has soared by more than 20 percent over the past three years, and there’s talk of making it an official sport in the Winter Olympics.
I’ve come to Banff to see what all the fuss is about on a two-day experiential course with Yamnuska Mountain Adventures (yamnuska.com, prices starting at $150 a day).
Johnston Canyon is a sharply hewn river valley lined with quaking aspens and lanky lodgepole pines. To get back to the ice wall, I have to crunch snow for about 45 minutes, walking like a cowboy to avoid daggering my pant leg with the razor-sharp crampons on my boots.
Along the way, I ask Shiu what went wrong yesterday, explaining that I seem to be much more adept at rock climbing.
“Rock climbing is usually easier to pick up because you just use your feet and hands to grab and go,” he explains. “In ice climbing, you have to figure out how to swing your ax and kick your crampons into the ice, so there’s a bigger learning curve.”
Shiu suggests that I work on maintaining a perfect triangle on the ice, with my feet spread wide and my ice tool above my head in the center. “This is the most stable body position,” he says.
With that in mind, I harness up and give it a go. Instead of straining my Popeye muscles to race up the wall, as I did yesterday, I focus on slow, controlled movements.
I realize after a successful second day that I’m so used to a city life that requires speed for efficiency that it was initially hard for me to slow down. But ice climbing isn’t about speed; it’s about carefully calculated moves.
Ice climbing is also about trusting the unknown. You have to trust that a tiny crampon spike will support your weight, and that a piece of frozen water isn’t minutes from melting in the afternoon sun.
If you can suspend your disbelief for a few hours, your reward is not only an intimate connection with nature, but also the chance to be a D-list superhero, at least for a while.