The Real Ice Porn

Original Ice Porn: "photo" Joe McKay

I hear that as of September 21st 2018, this climb is in again.  Once every decade...

This is a story I wrote about our original try at the FA. One of the best adventures I had with Dana Ruddy.  

Beware the original warning offered by Dave Marra (no shrinking violet himself.)

Real Ice Porn aka Polarity: Photo Jon Jugenheimer September 19, 2018

Ice Porn is in!” said Dave Marra as he pointed toward the unclimbed north face of Mount Snowdome. Around the corner from Slipstream (VI WI4+, 925m) was a thick stream of blue ice flowing uninterrupted from seracs above. What an unlikely spot for a clean line of ice—straight down a nearly vertical and unblemished dark expanse of limestone where nothing had ever formed before. Furthering the audacity of the line was the history of the fictitious ice climb we were referring to: Ice Porn. Five years ago, Joe McKay—a local guide—had spoofed the climbing media’s incessant need for hyperbole by inventing the ultimate ice epic set in the very spot where this new line now appeared. He had photoshopped pictures of Nemesis (V WI6, 160m) onto the north face of Mount Snowdome after climbing the former with Dana Ruddy and Paul Valiulis. With over-the-top phrases like “Gather about three metres of extra slack . . . then like a coiled

leopard, I launched myself out . . . aiming for the hole in the curtain out in space,” the climbing rags reported it as fact. Ice Porn had been etched in the collective consciousness of the Rockies climbing community, and here was our chance to actually climb the real thing.

“But if you guys decide to go do it, I’m out,” Dave

continued, “’cause I’m a family man now.” The three of us had

different reasons for being on the hunt for a first ascent: Dave

had a short break from family responsibilities to reassert himself

in the mountains he so loves; I had just worked every day for six

months; and Cory Richards seems enthusiastic about climbing

big stuff in general. However, three years earlier Dave and I had

nearly met our demise on the same day while climbing different

routes in adjacent cirques off the Icefields Parkway. Dave had

benn famously spat off the final pitch of his new route For

Fathers (V WI6, 1000m) when the serac he was climbing up

exploded. Meanwhile, I had been avalanched on at the base of

Cerca del Mar (V WI5+, 160m). For this reason I felt a spiritual

connection with Dave although we’d never climbed together

in the mountains, and deferred to his advice on the subject of

seracs. With the possibility of heading up as a threesome ruled

out, Cory and I bid him adieu. He put us in touch with Dana

Ruddy, and made us promise not to touch the blue glacial ice

if we got that far.

Dana had been on a send-fest for the past few years in the

Rockies. Judging from the state of his boots, I believed him

when he casually stated, “I don’t think anyone has put on more

miles in the alpine in the last couple of years.” No surprise that

he agreed to climb the Emperor Face on Mount Robson with

Cory and me. We marched the 20-something kilometres to Berg

Lake, saw the snow-covered face and walked out again. Nothing

beats a backcountry marathon with full packs to make one want

to travel vertically rather than horizontally. Over the next three

days the discussion centred on whether we’d get scooped on Ice

Porn. One day we saw Celtic Reforestation trucks cruising the

Parkway. “Oh my God, it’s Guy Lacelle,” I worried. Luckily, it

turned out that the trucks were simply on their way to a poorly

paid beetle-probing contract based in Canmore, and the world’s

foremost ice soloist was not scooping us. At the time it only

managed to put more fire under my desire to get going on the

route. Dana didn’t seem worried as he argued that we were in

Jasper and climbers there weren’t competitive.

“Yeah,” I reasoned, “but if JR sees that thing he’d be up it

in an hour without a backpack to slow him down,” referring to

one of the Rockies’ better-known speed demons—Jonny “Red”

Walsh. With a whiteout up high and continued bad weather in

the forecast, Cory and I hiked gear into the base the next day in

an effort to scope the route. From below we convinced ourselves

that the seracs were not overhanging and actually rather benign.

Dana spent the day hanging out at home, unsure of whether to

go due to the obvious objective hazard. Earlier I’d said to him

that the desire to climb the route, “depends what you have to

live for.” Given that he enjoys a nice lifestyle as a “legendary”

Jasper local complete with a lovely girlfriend and a slack work

schedule, I imagined it would take some convincing. I was

happy to hear upon our return that he was keen and considered

the climbing “no problem.”

If the climbing was no problem I thought, the length of

the route might be, with its 1,000 metres of vertical rise from

the glacier to the summit, 600 metres of which looked to be

WI5 or harder. Had any of us climbed that much steep ice

in a day? Never having climbed ice by headlamp I figured we

could be shut down by time rather than technical difficulty, so

I convinced the other two to bring light bivy gear. Dana was

most concerned about minimizing time under the seracs so he

suggested going over the top and descending the glacier instead

of rappelling the route. We tilted the odds in our favour by

taking a few luxuries and going as a team of three, bucking the

present fashion to be fair to the mountain.

First thing in the morning we climbed 300 metres of

easy ice. Dana successfully rope-gunned four 70-metre pitches

of beautiful ice while I silently prayed he would somehow

continue. Pitch one: “I would have been off that one.” Pitch

two: “Wow, my arms aren’t working.” Pitch three: “Yup, my

arms are non-functional but I think I can take over somehow.

I’ll find an easy way up but hope it’s not vertical.” Dana brought

me back to reality: “Nope, I saw it and it’s vertical, but I think

I’ve got another pitch left in me.”

A couple of weeks later at the opening night of the Banff

Mountain Film Festival, I recognized the same team dynamic in

the film The Alps, in which Robert Jasper guides John Harlin Jr.

up the north face of the Eiger. Robert Jasper (Dana) does all the

hard leading, his wife (me) belays while John Harlin Jr. (Cory)

feeds the slack. This may sound a bit harsh, but let’s be honest

about what happened up there: Dana was “the man” and Cory

and I were the belayers. To be fair, Cory led the last WI4 pitch

up to the base of the serac, while Dana and I discussed how to

surmount the overhanging glacial ice-cliff. It was obviously the

steepest ice either of us had ever seen.

“I know,” I offered. “I’ve seen photos of Jeff Lowe aiding

the serac on the north face of Temple. We’ll just sit on screws.”

“I’ve never aided,” responded Dana, so I thought my

chance had come to pay him back for his consecutive leads.

Being the slower of the two, I arrived at the belay behind Dana

to hear that we were pulling the plug. Cory had decided that

the risk was too great. If the serac came off from the force of a

climber, we’d be crushed. A more usual level of risk aversion had

returned to our team and it didn’t take any convincing to decide

to rap. “Not the worst idea ever,” became our rally cry.

We were glad for the bivy gear two pitches down as we

settled onto a comfy protected ledge, which was better than

rappelling slowly in the dark. We had done the “first team-ofthree

ascent to the top of the rock buttress on the north face

of Mount Snowdome and shiver bivy at 3,200 metres with

associated smoking of a large celebratory hash joint”…ever! It

was the most memorably enjoyable night I have spent in the

mountains.

Descending to the valley the next morning, we returned

to a different climbing reality that includes all the details,

which I suppose matter but didn’t seem to at the time. Four

days later, Ueli Steck and Simon Anthamatten from Switzerland

repeated the route but climbed through the final serac adding

50 metres to our effort. However, they didn’t climb off the top

of the mountain either, as it was blocked by a cornice. This

prompted the question about who, if anyone yet, had done

the first ascent. At the time, Cory had chatted to Will Gadd

and Barry Blanchard and both seemed to think we’d done

the first ascent of the waterfall, but not an alpine first ascent.

Unfortunately Cory’s correspondence with the climbing media

resulted in Climbing.com’s Hotflashes (coincidentally sounding

pornographic and thus perhaps appealing to the same male

instinct) reporting it as the first ascent of the north face of

Mount Snowdome (Cory had not told them any such thing).

As expected, people let their opinions be known and correctly

pointed out that it was not the first ascent of the north face since

it did not top-out. Then again, M-16 (VI WI7 A2, 1000m) on

the northeast face of Howse Peak didn’t top-out either. Does

that just make it some kind of cragging route?

Then there’s the nature of our climb—serac threatened.

Barry points out that there are various reasons for grading a

route commitment grade VI. Difficulty and objective hazard

are a couple of the criteria. Clearly the climbing was not that

difficult, at least not for someone in shape like Dana. Does

it deserve grade VI commitment just because the entire team

could be obliterated? It is definitely not an alpine grade VI but

is it a waterfall grade VI? I don’t know. Barry says he’s climbed

through seracs only once—on Borderline (VI WI5, 800m)—and

won’t ever do it again. We didn’t, and Dave Marra on For Fathers

didn’t either (but he tried). So why is a European climber willing

to accept the risk that modern-day Canadian alpinists won’t (or,

in Dave’s case, have their sanity questioned for even trying)

Arctic Dream (VI WI6, 500m) below the Quadra Glacier shares

a similar history. Canadians did the first ascent of the waterfall

but it took Europeans to go through the seracs. The exception is

Eric Dumerac and Shaun King’s ascent through the seracs above

Gimme Shelter (VI WI6, 500m). I can relate when Ueli says he

didn’t know if he “would ever get a chance to climb something

like that ever again in the alpine.” Looking back, in a way I

wish we had tried the serac pitch. Having said that though, I’ve

learned to be happy for what I manage to do in this life.

Summary

Polarity (VI WI5+, 800m), north face of Mt. Snowdome,

Columbia Icefields, Jasper National Park, Alberta. FA: Cory

Richards, Dana Ruddy, Ian Welsted, October 13–14, 2007.

FA through serac: Simon Anthamatten, Ueli Steck, October 18,

2007. Note: Anthamatten and Steck did not top-out either due

to a large cornice blocking access to the summit plateau.

About the Author

Ian Welsted is lucky to have witnessed great feats of ropegunning

prowess in a variety of conditions, predominantly in

the Canadian Rockies’ winter season of late. Ambitions center

around dreams of permanent retirement from compulsory

employment with B.C.’s thriving forestry and mining industries.

The Canadian Alpine Journal 2008