Winter ‘24-25: Canada & Cody Ice Climbing

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Writing about my accident, I noticed I had not written a post in almost a year! Ridiculous.

So instead of the drama of things going wrong, let’s revisit a couple successes. And this winter was quite the success.

After climbing a couple hardcore seasons in Colorado, an ice climber needs to stretch their wings, and travel. There is only so much one can do in a warm, sunny, and CROWDED place like CO. Last year I visited Cody for the first time, and this year was Cody+Canada. Pretty awesome places, with plenty of ice to go around.

I climbed primarily with Sarah Hudson (@SarahFerocity), a badass out of the PNW.

Cody

This year was my second extended visit to Cody, Wyoming, one of the SCARIEST PLACES IN THE LOWER 48. (Or do the locals just want you to think that?)

Cody’s a premier ice climbing arena. It is true, you’ll need a solid toolbox of alpine skills, some immunity to suffering, and lots of stamina to keep climbing the endless chutes of ice. If you can hack it here, you can do a lot in alpinism.

The town offers plenty of western life, as well. (Thanks to Jessica, our host!)

It snowed an insane amount during my visit, very unusual for Cody, where low avalanche risk is part of the appeal. My flight out was canceled, actually. But that allowed more opportunity for climbing 🤩🤩

Check out some of what we got up to in Cody:

Horsetail Falls, WI4+

Hunter Creek Falls WI5 – the joys of the Cody approach
Sarah high on a multi-pitch climb
Animal Rights Activist 4+ – this thing is so much harder than it looks
Cabin Fever WI 5
Drytoolin’ in a snowstorm. No idea the grade.

Riding these horses to Horsetail Falls was one of the highlights of my winter!

If you want to learn more about the Cody ice scene, Zach Eiten and I put together a pretty good guide to Cody Ice climbing over at Ice Ice Beta – check it out! (Zach wrote it, I edited and produced it). I think this guide gives you a good understanding what Cody’s about, without spoiling the surprise or mystique of the place.

Canada

Canada is disgustingly stacked with ice. It’s really unfair. We were climbing in Alberta, but Quebec supposedly has an awesome ice scene too. There’s not a whole lot more to say on the topic. Trump was on all the TVs, threatening annexation.

It felt great to show up to Canada for the first time and feel like I could play with the big boys – leading long stout pitches of Rockies 5 and 5+. Unfavorable avalanche conditions kept us away from some of the real plums, but there was so much around that it didn’t feel like a major loss.

Whiteman Falls WI5+
Leaving the belay cave, headed into pitch 2 of Whiteman Falls
Top of Whiteman Falls. The third guy, Paul, I met in Peru two summers ago. “Well Dan, you proved your own hype,” he said after this climb. I had been pitching him on hard ice and mixed climbs that whole summer, but we never had the chance to try anything too serious together (Just Huarapasca, which was pretty chill). Fun to run into him in Canada.
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly WI5. Full southern exposure on this puppy (notice how white). This climb could never survive in Colorado. The climber pictured is not me – we hit it at sunrise and skedaddled before too much ice started falling. Sat on the bank of the river shirtless and watched this local guide style it.
Super Bock WI5. That upper flow (pitches 2&3) is 120 meters long. Crazy big.
Crowds weren’t generally much of a problem, except for one day when we tried to climb this thing – Moonrise WI 4. This party was bringing down an insane amount of ice and taking forever, so we bailed.
On the way to Moonrise
The impressive Rockies looming over the town of Canmore.

Weirdly, there’s not a whole lot to say about successful climbs. You show up, knock it out, and go home. And when you’re climbing in a party of two, the pictures usually don’t turn out that amazing either, since you’re focused on the logistics of climbing safely.

The potential in Canada is immense, and it’s easy to see why it’s an international destination. I will certainly be back.

Elsewhere

Rob Griz farmed a new pillar in Vail, to the left of the Rigid Designator. This was really cool, it seemed to change significantly between each of my visits. Griz also published a new guidebook for Front Range ice climbing, go buy a copy and support his development efforts!

Also got to climb this puppy in Hyalite Canyon – appropriately named “The Good Looking One“. Spectacular piece of ice – thin down low into a 3D crux hooking delicate holes out of the little cave. “Psychotic lead”, said Thomas.

Anyways, that was winter. Sometimes it was very cold, and you had to wear many jackets.

But a good alpinist has a short memory, and I remember the winter as fun and productive! Hope yours was good too!

And as always, make sure to thank your climbing partner!!
(I probably stole a lot of these photos from her)

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