 |
| 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
