Balfour Wall is a top roping, crag-style climbing area located on Mount Murchison along the Icefields Parkway. The ice is visible from the highway just north of the parking, most easily spotted if you are driving south from the turn-off to the David Thompson area. It is a large curtain on the lower cliffs. We climbed there on February 25, 2024.
Beta:
- WI3 and WI4
- single pitch
- approach is 30 – 45 minutes, 1.1 km
- tree anchors
- can walk around and set top ropes
- descent: rappel or walk off (steep)
- micro spikes and trekking pole are useful if the trail is icy
- one rope is sufficient
This is a great place to practice leading and top roping WI3 and WI4 with many possible lines to climb.
The Approach
The parking area is a pull-out along Mount Murchison on the east side of the Icefields Parkway. Parking is at the green dot on the map below. The bright green line is the route we took to the ice, recorded on my FATMAP app.
The paler green line at the bottom is the Icefields Parkway. Mount Murchison is marked on the left side of the photo.
There was fresh snow on our drive out and we were worried that the trail might be buried. When we arrived, we easily found the trail heading out from the north end of the pull-out.
The trail was well-trodden and easy to follow. It heads away from the highway, meandering towards the cliff.
As it gets closer to the cliff, the trail starts going uphill. It gets steeper as you get closer.
The trail passes a lower ice formation that looks like it would be fun to climb. It’s probably possible to walk from the trail over to the top of this ice to set up a top rope.
After the lower ice, the trail climbs steeply through the trees, passing rocky cliffs to the right of the ice. We walked across the rocky section to find a nice flat spot under some trees to put on harnesses and crampons and store our backpacks, out of the snow.
It looked like you could continue up the trail to the top of the cliff and access the tree anchors to set up top ropes.
The Climb
There are three main ice flows to climb.
The ice on the right was steep and chandeliered when we were there. It was also dripping and quite wet so we didn’t climb it.
The ice in the middle was the easiest. We started here, both leading a line along the left side of the rocky bulge. There is a tree anchor at the top center. Dan then walked the rope over to another tree anchor, above the left side, and set up a top rope.
The left side was also steep with a few fun WI4 lines. We top-roped a few different lines here. It was very steep, chandeliered and fun.
Here Dan is almost finished another lap of the left side.
We enjoyed our climbing day at Balfour Wall. It is too far for us to drive from Calgary for the day but when we’re back at Lake Louise, we’ll head back there for another practice session.
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