I vividly remember the experience of purchasing my first ice axe in Canada. It was back in the summer of 2010. Back then, to help with getting used to mountain travel, I had been active in joining trips organized by the B.C. Mountaineering Club into the mountains near Squamish.
On one trip, an ice axe was one of a few mandatory items required before participants could join. I had seen people using them before but, to be honest, I had no clue what they were.
However, knowing I required it to climb the mountain I was considering, I bit the bullet and went to an outdoor retailer to purchase one.
I received guidance from an employee there about what length and type I’d need for the kinds of mountains I was interested in. It was confusing to me at that time, but I trusted his experience and advice.
As I settled on my first ice axe and clanged it down in front of the cashier, he looked up and said: “I always feel like I’m back in medieval times when somebody buys one of these. It’s like I work in an armoury and I’m suiting up knights preparing to go into battle.”
Being honest, that’s how it felt to me as well. To an outsider, an ice axe looks like a primitive tool from a forgotten age. It is a testament to its design, however, that it has not really needed to change much since it was first invented in the early days of mountaineering.
Growing up in Ireland, I had never encountered a need to learn about these tools for mountain travel. Ireland has few mountains and no glaciers, and it rarely snows at sea level. The temperatures seldom drop below freezing.
Watching movies and documentaries about adventurers at the poles or in the Great White North of Canada growing up made me feel jealous of places that had snow. While I’m sure waking up to a snow-filled driveway every morning is a nuisance to many Canadians, I longed for that novelty and still enjoy clearing away snow on the odd occasions that Squamish receives it.
When I first held my new ice axe, it seemed I’d purchased the key that would allow me to unlock access to so many new places in the wilds of B.C.
I began fervently heading out with fellow mountaineers more experienced than me to learn how to properly use my axe. I learned how to chop steps with the flat part of the head at the back called the adze, how to use it to build anchors in the snow, how to properly swing the pick into ice and how to use it to bang in pickets for protection on exposed icy slopes. I also learned how to self-arrest with this tool should I slip.
In mountaineering there is generally a code that says a climber and his ice axe should never be separated. An ice axe is so important that most climbers accustomed to its use feel naked without it. Dropping an ice axe and losing it can have serious consequences in the mountains. In the same way that having one can unlock access to a mountain, losing it while on a mountain can lock you there without any safe way to get out.
Over time, through use and experience, I used that axe to visit some of the amazing wild places near Squamish. I traversed creaking, blue-ice glaciers and ascended steep snow-filled gullies towards windswept summits. As I progressed, I made the transition from using a traditional ice axe to using modern ice tools designed specifically for climbing vertical ice such as frozen waterfalls.
Learning to climb frozen waterfalls was surreal. I had never even seen a frozen waterfall before in Ireland, let alone imagined I would ever get to climb one.
Something I’ve found inspiring about the culture on the West Coast of B.C. in and around Squamish is that the outdoor community here is not content with just looking at the wild from the safety of their towns and streets.
They want to interact with it, experience it up close and get to know these places intimately, from scaling the sheer cliffs of the Stawamus Chief or skiing off the mountain summits that can be seen near town to mountain biking through the forests. People here want to be a part of the natural world, not just spectators of it.
In the same way, people here can’t just look at a wall of frozen water from afar; they want to get up close to it, see how it was formed and test themselves by attempting to climb it.
Unlike most other natural formations that will be around for eons, like the granite walls of the Chief, frozen waterfalls are usually only around for a few months of the year. It is their ephemeral nature that makes them so special. Some years they may not form, and other years, they may form completely differently to any time before.
I began to cautiously climb my first walls of ice. As an outsider I imagined the ice would shatter like glass, but it can curiously have a consistency closer to a large block of plastic. With time I gained confidence that it wasn’t going to suddenly melt and fall down around me, and I learned the proper technique for ascending it.
I’m still very much a novice in this sport, but I’m excited to be steadily progressing. Squamish even gets enough ice that can be climbed from time to time. If you hear the words “Arctic outflow” in the weather forecast, you can be sure that ice climbers in this town are sharpening their tools in expectation of the cold snap.
If you’re interested in learning to explore the mountains and natural wonders of this amazing part of the world for yourself, I’d recommend visiting one of our excellent local outdoor retailers in Squamish to get advice about which ice axe would be right for you. Along with it, be sure to seek guidance in its proper use by enrolling in any of the many mountaineering courses that are organized in the Sea to Sky corridor.
