Gaining a toehold on ice climbing
At Mont Tremblant ski resort, beginners can get an introduction to winter mountaineering
The point of the ice axe chunks into the frozen waterfall overhead, and ice chips spray into my face and chatter off my goggles. But the axe fails to gain purchase, so I swing again. And again. Finally, it digs in about an inch, and I haul myself up, feet anchored into the ice by the toe picks on my crampons.
Standing upright about 10 metres in the air, face first to a sheet of ice, I’m already plotting my Everest ascent, following in the tracks of Norgay, Hillary and Krakauer.
Then not one but both of my crampons suddenly break loose, leaving me dangling ingloriously from my belay rope, splayed on the ice like a trout on the floor of a rowboat. It occurs to me that eight people died on the day Jon Krakauer ascended into the thin air of Everest in 1996.
“That’s a fail, dad,” my 8-year-old yells from below.
He’s standing with our guide, Simon Harvey, who is holding the other end of the rope that is keeping me from plummeting. We’re trying our hand at ice climbing at the Mont Tremblant ski resort. The initiation to the sport is offered by the resort’s activity centre, which also has more staid offerings like dog sledding and spa outings on the agenda. These presumably don’t include warnings of the possibility of skin burns, muscle or ligament injury or falls leading to serious injury and/or death on their waiver forms, as ours does. But we wanted a taste of what it’s like to be on the icy face of a mountain, so here we are, outfitted with crampons, a blue helmet, two ice axes and a harness belt to affix to the climbing rope.
Harvey, of the Attitude Montagne climbing centre in nearby Ste. Adèle, explains the basics: swing the ice axe high overhead, and at shoulder length – put it too close to the centre of your body and the metal end could recoil into your face if it disengages from the ice face suddenly – he has a recent cut on his cheek to prove this. With the crampons, kick as high as possible into the ice, and try to angle your kick upwards, with heel down, to dig as many of the picks on your crampon into the ice surface as possible, giving maximum stability. This may involve several kicks. Try to keep most of your weight on your feet, letting your legs do the work. And up you go.
“The rest,” said Harvey, “is experience and the learning curve.” Climbers are also shown basic belaying techniques used to control the rope that is anchored at the top of the icefall and back down to the climber, pulling in the slack and keeping the climber safe. It’s an easy but important technique, quickly learned.
I and my son, who initially has some trouble swinging what are, for him, fairly hefty axes, improve quickly with practice, learning to kick repeatedly to gain a foothold and put weight on our feet. Our climbing surface is at about a 75 per cent grade. It is rated a level 2, or 2.5 in the steeper bits, on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being the hardest. It’s a good workout climbing up, and engaging enough that you forget you’re suspended more than 10 metres in the air, which is a good thing. After a few runs, we’re climbing up the 15-metre incline in less than 10 minutes. Harvey has us climb with one axe, and then none, to make it more challenging. By the end of the three-hour session, Matthew and I have done at least four climbs each. Reviews on the website indicate it might be a little tame for experienced ice climbers, but for a couple newbies looking for a taste of mountaineering, it’s a great afternoon’s experience, and a sign that Everest might be within reach after all. Or at least Mount Royal.