>> You can practise ice climbing in Montreal
and then scale waterfalls and
cliff-faces all over Quebec

GOING UP: New routing in Lanaudière

by SHANE SINNOTT

It’s likely that at some point this winter you’re going to slip on the ice. What’s going to happen is, you will be walking down your stairs or stepping into your car or passing by the crowded line-up for the bus, and as you put your weight on your leading foot, it will slip forward and you’ll land on your back, hard as a bone. It will ruin your day.

The next time this happens—when you’re on your ass, shrugging helplessly at that bus line-up—I want you to console yourself with the fact that ice can be conquered, and that anyone with the right tools can climb up a wall of it.

Ice climbing is the vertical ascent of a wall of ice for the purpose of pleasure, practised around the world by restless mountaineers since the 1970s. Rather than simply dealing with small patches of snow and ice that can come up during a mountain climb, ice climbing tackles the ice alone: usually a frozen waterfall, or cliff-face that has iced over entirely. I spoke with Louis-Philippe Ménard, who has over 15 years climbing experience all over the world, about the typical transition from rock climbing to ice climbing.

“I started rock climbing, but I was a winter lover. I loved to play in the snow. I knew as soon as I got the money, I would ice climb.”

CLIMBING IN PONT-ROUGE:
Audrey Gariépy scales the cliff-face

Safe, but not cheap

The reason for needing money—or a friend you can borrow stuff from—is the equipment involved, which, if you had to buy all from scratch, could cost you as much as $2,000. As Ménard puts it, “You’re not climbing with your hands and feet, but with an extension of your hands and feet,” and limb-extenders, especially those that can grip ice and be depended on to support your body weight without fail, aren’t cheap.

Lest that dollar figure put you off—or, say, this quote from Normand Hébert, another experienced climber who, when I asked him if he’d had an accident, said, “I fell 30 feet once and fractured my spinal bone”—keep in mind that there are many ways to try out the sport without spending three months’ rent.

The McTavish reservoir, right here downtown—that grassy field above the McGill campus that, unbeknownst to me until recently, is essentially the roof to a giant reservoir that holds all of our city’s water supply—is a good place to start. Bordering that field, you will find an ice-covered ridge about 10 metres high, where you can “boulder around,” according to Ménard—“bouldering” is a rock climbing term which means basically practising and messing around on small formations without the need for safety ropes.

Both Hébert and Ménard were quick to point out that ice climbing is a very different sport from rock climbing. “It’s less technical, but more physical,” Ménard says—you don’t need as carefully a planned route on a wall of ice (you can stick your axe in anywhere, after all), but you have to pull yourself up constantly. And although the sport is extremely safe—accidents aside, Hébert says, “It’s not more dangerous than biking if you climb at your level. It’s known as an ‘extreme sport,’ but it isn’t”—there are safety concerns that aren’t present in rock climbing.

“Climbing in general, everyone will tell you, you need a helmet,” says Ménard, “but with ice climbing, you really need to not leave your helmet at home. Rock climbing, you can leave it home once in a while. But with ice climbing, there’s chunks of ice flying over you.”

FOR WINTER LOVERS ONLY: Nadine St-Pierre in St-Alban

Learn, practise, go

The best way to learn ice climbing is to take one of the courses, which are relatively inexpensive, and are available throughout the city. There are Tuesday night lessons at the McTavish reservoir, and a local climbing gym, like Allez-Up, located just south of downtown, will offer many courses to get you started. Once you’ve got some experience, you’re in the perfect location: there are many climbs a short drive outside of the city. Ménard suggests Shawbridge, on Highway 15, before Saint-Sauveur.

As for more, he adds, “Quebec is one of the perfect regions for ice climbing—we have the perfect weather. The Malbaie region here in Quebec is my personal favourite. There are 350-metre ice-climbs there that are just beautiful.”