Whilst I've generally taken a camera on ice routes, I haven't actually taken very many photographs. The problem is that taking them whilst climbing can be problematic, not to say scary, and taking them whilst belaying is often not exactly good form, involving one hand being less than attentive to the rope handling! I intend to expand this areas with recent photos from New England but, for the moment, here are a few routes where I did manage the odd photo or two.
One of my most memorable ice routes was not strictly ice climbing at all and involved rather a lot of horizontal, rather than vertical, frozen water. The route was short, taking only a couple of hours, and involved travelling along the bottom of a deeply cut, narrow (5 to 10 metres wide) river canyon, Maligne Canyon, near Jasper, in the Canadian Rockies.
In the extreme cold of this area the river repeatedly freezes and partially thaws. As the water flow decreases in Winter thick 'skins' of ice are left above the flowing water, in places at several different levels and as much as 3 metres above the river. Some of these then collapse, leaving narrow ledges of ice clinging to the vertical walls of the canyon. The trip involves travelling along these ledges and sometimes being obliged to break through a complete 'skin', above one's head, in order to carry on upstream. There are a few short, easy ice climbing ascents but those aren't really the point - the point is the grandeur and sheer novelty of the route.
Usually, whilst ice climbing can be dangerous, it's possible to protect a climb; on this trip the chance of protection is somewhat limited, most of the movement being horizontally on the ledges - rather worrying but great fun and a trip which I recommend very highly.
The lower end of the canyon also contains a few more conventional, but short, routes, the best of which is The Queen 35m II, 4.
This route in the Ghost River area between Calgary and Banff was one of the best days I had on a two week trip to the Canadian Rockies in 1995. It was our last day of climbing and the weather was superb. We'd heard that it was possible to drive the 40km. or so along the unmetalled road into the Ghost Valley, even without four wheel drive and that it was a fabulous place, so we risked it. We did nearly end up in a small river when crossing an iced up bridge but apart from that the drive was fine and the view at the end well worth it in itself. The route we had in mind was a thick column called Malignant Mushroom, which looked good and whose name had captured our imaginations.
Arriving at the route sometime mid to late morning we found a rope of two already on it and waited. By the time the second was a third of the way up the sun had been on the ice for a few hours and it was looking more and more like a waterfall, rather than an ice fall; the climber wasn't so much using his axes as his entire forearm to climb the melting column. Not wishing to get soaked we abandoned the climb, consulted the guidebook and headed across the valley to the North facing side to climb Wicked Wanda and salvage the day.
This proved to be a much more atmospheric climb, being set into a deep cleft in the rock wall and having two very distinctive pitches. In particular, the second pitch was both really beautiful and great fun to climb, being formed of remarkable, overhanging, windblown shapes. We left the Ghost that day extremely pleased at "risking the hire car" to get there and with a very definite intention to go in there for a few days next time we're in Canada.
There are a few classics that really have to be climbed in the Canadian Rockies and Weeping Wall. is one of them. The wall is located south of Jasper on the Banff-Jasper highway (the BJ) and is a mere 10 minutes or so from the road. It's a very improbable sight, being a huge wall of ice roughly as wide as it is high, towering above the road.
There are a number of main lines but the wall offers effectively unlimited scope for routes. The one we took was relatively straightforward but the situation is superb, with ice stretching away in all directions for an awfully long way.
As with the Weeping Wall in the Canadian Rockies, so with The Black Dike in New England. With modern tools it's not an overly difficult climb now, but it's a fabulous location, being high up on a cliff, very visible from the road and in a very prominent corner. When we climbed it the ice was in very good condition, though pitted by quite a number of ascents earlier that season. Atmospherically, it's a brilliant route and whilst the approach walk is straight up from the road for an hour or so, the descent is rather more rapid since it's possible to glissade most of the way. Note that the best abseil point involves crossing to the right (facing in) of the top of the route before starting the rappel.
Repentance is another classic line in New England. It's a thin line of ice down a crack in the cliff, narrow enough to make tool placement tricky once above the first pitch. On that day, I just spent a few hours on the very comfortable ledge at the top of the first pitch since there was another party on the route and the complexities of the ropes, coupled with a time limit to our climbing, meant that I couldn't go further.
This is a lovely little river canyon with vertical sides and lots of trees at the top of the 30m. sides for top-roping and generally practicing. It's also fairly sheltered from the weather, so whilst this was a very snowy day we were quite protected down at the bottom and even when getting up into the trees.
These cliffs are very easy to get to with an easy approach walk, hence very busy indeed at weekends. Having said that, they were relatively quiet during the week and there is a large number of routes of easy to moderate standard, with Dracula being the hardest and most sustained. A great place to go and play!
