I love the idea of an adventure climb. Hiking up a frozen creek and checking out the frozen waterfalls. Scrambling up the smaller ice steps and climbing the tall, frozen columns where the creek spills over a cliff. Finding narrow canyons and wide pools, frozen flat and smooth. What a fun way to spend a day in the mountains. Lady Wilson’s Cleavage is exactly this kind of climb.
The photo above shows the cleft in the mountain where the creek comes down from a massive ice sheet above. This large curtain of ice is called Wilson Major. There are many lines to climb there, or so I’ve read. We didn’t make it up to Wilson Major this time but we had a great time trying.
Beta:
- this climb is in a huge terrain trap and avalanches are a real danger here, wait for safe conditions
- this is a “choose your own adventure” climb where you decide when to belay and when to solo based on your own abilities and comfort level
- WI3 is the most difficult climbing, there are many easier sections
- we belayed 4 pitches, we soloed smaller or less steep sections
- we ascended about 325 meters (from the road) before turning around
- we put crampons on at the car and walked up the frozen creek
- descent: there are bolted rappel rings in many places but you may need to build v-threads
- we rappelled the route until near the bottom where we could walk down through the trees on climber’s left side of the creek
- we used one 70-meter rope
The Approach
Parking is on the east side of the Icefields Parkway where the creek meets the road, about 9 km north of the turn-off for the David Thompson highway. The map below shows the location of the climb. The green dot is where we parked and the bright green line is where we went, recorded on the FATMAP app. I believe we got pretty close to Wilson Major but we were running out of daylight and wanted to leave enough time for the descent.
The Climb
From the road, we hiked over to the creek on a well-defined trail of footsteps.
Then we walked up the creek toward the first steep ice.
When we first saw it, we thought it was a thin sliver of ice in a tall crease and we might have to hike around it. (Note the potential to walk down through the trees on the left. This is a potential descent route for this bottom part.)
When we got closer, we saw that it could be climbed and looked like a lot of fun. This was the first ice where we belayed. It was my turn to lead and even though it wasn’t too challenging, it was fun to follow the creek up and see what was above.
There are rappel rings at the top of that first pitch, on the left side. There were many similar rings on the way up, typically on the left side but occassionally on the right. We had to look around and found they were often above our heads. Must have been low ice when we climbed it.
This is an easier section that we soloed.
Another fun section.
Continued exploration as we make our way up the creek, sometimes through narrow slots.
We decided to belay here.
This massive chockstone is wedged firmly between the canyon walls. The route goes up underneath the chockstone on the left side. It was fun to pass underneath the immense boulder. We explored the route a bit further past the chockstone and then turned around. We wanted to leave lots of time for the descent.
The Descent
We rappelled from rappel rings for much of the descent. In two places, we needed to build v-threads because we could not find rings and the ice was too steep for us to down-climb comfortably. We used one 70-meter rope and it went smoothly. I would hesitate to use two 60-meter ropes because, in many places, this route is not very steep. When the rope is pulled after the rappel, it could run over boulders and featured rock where it might get stuck.
Near the bottom, above the first steep sections, it is possible to walk into the trees on climber’s left and walk down the rest of the way to the flat creek bed.
Lady Wilson’s Cleavage was a fun day of adventure and exploration in the mountains.
If you decide to do it, check avalanche conditions at Avalanche Canada here: https://avalanche.ca/map
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