Cory Richards, Dana Ruddy, and Ian Welsted have climbed a huge and dangerous new ice route in the Canadian Rockies. The new route, called Polarity (800m, VI WI 5+), ascends most of the North Face of Mt. Snowdome, around the corner from the famous Slipstream.

Richards and Welsted had been hoping to attempt something big along the Icefields Parkway for a over a week and had noticed that the line was in condition, but they hadn’t seriously considered attempting it because of the huge serac band that guards the top of the cliff. “However, after Dana, Ian, and I walked into the Emperor Face of Robson and noted that the face was horrifically dry, with an early-season dusting of snow, and then walked out the same day, the idea to actually climb Polarity become real,” Richards said. “Perhaps it was the 26-mile hike, or maybe just general angst, but it sort of seemed to make sense.” 

On October 13, after scoping the route for a few days, they left Jasper at 3 a.m., walked to the base of the face, and simul-climbed the first 400 meters or so of lower-angled ice, moving quickly through the section most exposed to danger from falling ice. Once they reached vertical ice, they began belaying from semi-sheltered stances. 

“The ice was fantastic: steep, technical, but not overly difficult, with great protection,” Richards said. He added, “Dana had the meat of the climb, climbing the four crux pitches in his block.” 

The team elected not to climb through the overhanging seracs at the top and started rappelling. They bivied under a big overhang two pitches below their high point and finished the descent in the morning. “Eventually, sooner or later, a party more bold than ourselves will climb through the serac and give it a ‘full alpine ascent,’” Richards said. “We'll leave it to them.” 

Polarity rises just to the right of a fictional route called Ice Porn (VII WI 7+? M9 A3), which was created in Photoshop in 2003 and posted on Will Gadd’s Gravsports.com web site. Joe McKay posted a pitch-by-pitch “description” of Ice Porn, along with a photo of Snowdome with an image of the real climb Nemesis superimposed on the North Face. The hoax was imaginative, to say the least. Here’s part of the description for pitch 4 (WI 6+/7 A3): 

“Here you come to the roof and it gets a bit tricky. About 8 feet out on the lip of the roof [is] a 8X12 inch hole in a well-attached piece of ice coming off the roof. Best to place a screw here to protect this move. Aid up by hooking your tool into the carabiner (AID Part). Gather about three meters of extra slack till it is draped well below you. Work your feet up. At this point I unclipped my leash, then like a coiled leopard I launched myself out to the roof, my remaining tool extended aiming for the hole in the curtain out in space.” 

Read the entire Ice Porn description HERE. 

For years, climbers have been speculating about when the real Ice Porn might be climbed. And now it has. 

Date of Ascent: October 13, 2007 

Sources: Cory Richards, Gravsports.com 

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