Gripped

1989–2014

Cory Hall I first met Cory

- BP

during one of his Rockies tr ips. He rol led i nto Canmore to climb some of the bigger mountains, some of the classic routes. I knew when I met him that he was a modern day climber with an old spir it for adventure. The kind of wonder for wild places we only read about in the ta les of legendar y explorers. I wil l a lways remember him saying, “You can do whatever it is that you want to do, you just have to star t doing it.”

Cor y was f rom Saint John, N.B. and had the humour and char ming light-heartednes­s synonymous with East Coasters. He had spent the last few years travel ling the world, climbing in some of the most remote and beautiful places a climber can dream of, including Patagonia, Cochamo, the Rockies and India. It is hard to write about ever ything the 25- year-old Cor y Hall had accomplish­ed as a climber and travel ler. For Cor y, it was not about the black and white list of accomplish­ments or grades, it was more about the adventure he had along the way.

In the Canadian Rockies he climbed the North East Ridge of Mount Alberta with Max Fisher and had made a solo ascent of Mount Assiniboin­e. About the top of Alberta, Cor y wrote, “The view was amazing: the Twins, Mount Columbia, Mount Athabasca, and the Columbia Icef ields to our south, Mount Clemenceau and its icef ield to the west, and Mount Fr yatt to the north.”

Cor y then turned his attention to the Bugaboos where he soloed four classic granite spires in one day: Snowpatch, Bugaboo, South Howser and Pigeon Spire.

In 2012, he travel led to the Cordil lera Blanca i n Per u and climbed Urus Este, Tocl laraju, and soloed up Quitaraju’s north face. “I dr ied gear in the late after noon sun. The linger ing clouds on the r idges lit up as the sun set, outlining the mountains in a pink glow.

In Patagonia in Januar y 2013 he climbed the famed Ragni Route on Cerro Torre, along with a handful of other granite spires. Cor y wrote about Torre, “We stood on the summit, jagged granite peaks and towers f loated on a sea of swirling clouds, a dream had been reached.”

In September 2013, Cor y travelled to the Ladakh Region in Northern India with James Moneypenny. The pair climbed two new routes on the often-tr ied Jungdung Kangri. Their f irst ascent of the mountain earned them a nomination for the 2014 Piolet d’Or. “I can’t believe we were nominated, the biggest honour I could imagine. Our climb was the climb of a lifetime,” said Cor y after receiving the news of their nomination.

In 2014, Cor y jumped on his motorbike with plans of r iding from Canada to Argentina. In Januar y, he stopped and climbed in Mexico, he toured some of the less travel led areas. He then rode through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. He loaded his bike into a boat and made the three-day journey to Colombia.

He then rode his bike along the open road for Colombia’s El Cocuy. Cor y climbed icy peaks and wrote a stor y about the rapid recession of the areas glaciers. “Clouds blanketed the easter n Amazon side of the range and the sun warmed the crevasse-riddled faces and the cor nice r idge I had to traverse. I weaved cor nices, ducked under seracs and then summitted. Alpine faces never to feel the swing of an a xe or hear the ping of a piton, virg in and pure, plunged into a now nearly inaccessib­le val ley.”

Cor y ar r ived in Per u’s Cordil lera Blanca in June 2014 for an extended stay. He climbed a number of impressive peaks and made the f irst solo ascent of the south east r idge of Chopicalqu­i. With his fr iend Ethan El lington he made an ascent of Artesonraj­u, one of the classic Andean climbs. He passed away dur ing an accident on Mount Piramide.

Cor y was a cutting-edge climber in that he went where few had gone. His passion for high alpine peaks in remote areas was a motivation to those who knew him and to those who read his stor ies.–

 ??  ?? Above: Hall on El Elmo, Christmas Eve 2012
Above: Hall on El Elmo, Christmas Eve 2012

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