This area is usually a wide smear of ice that allows multiple parties to set top ropes and run laps of WI2 and WI3. The belay areas are flat with good stances and overall, it’s usually a fun and comfortable place to bring beginners or get a start-of-season warm-up day and enjoy some easy laps. Usually.
As you can see in the photo above, taken on February 7, 2024, it doesn’t always form up. This year the only climbable ice is on the far left. It’s WI2 with a tree anchor way at the back. Barely space here for two parties. Probably best for just one.
Here is how Wedge Smears usually looks. Usually.
This photo was taken November 20, 2022. Even though it was early in the season, there was already a lot more ice that year.
The beta:
- usually WI2 and WI3 lines
- single pitch
- you can walk around up to the top and set top rope anchors
- the anchors are tree anchors
- 1.5 km approach hike
- there is usually a well-worn trail to the ice
The Approach
The hike starts on the east side of Highway 40 in Kananaskis. You can park at the Galatea trailhead parking lot further south on the west side of the highway (marked with a green picnic table in the photo below) and then walk across the highway and around the corner to the start of the climb. Or, if your vehicle can manage it, park just off the road on the east side where the trail begins.
The map shows our route to the ice, recorded in the FATMAP app. The hike starts on a wide trail, perhaps an old road. Leave the road and enter the forest on the right onto a smaller trail and follow the trail through the forest gradually uphill. Eventually you come to a creek bed below the ice. Hike up the creek bed (microspikes are helpful) to the bottom of the ice.
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