Dan and I had never climbed at the Cline River before but we’d heard about it. We’d seen many photos of the Cline River Gallery with climbers standing on the frozen river gazing up at wide curtains of steep, blue ice. On March 3, 2026, we decided it was time to check it out.
Driving out from Lake Louise, we turned onto Highway 11 and drove into David Thompson Country. When we got to the Cline River, we weren’t sure if we should start on the south or north side – there was trailhead parking in both places. We chose the north side, drove across the bridge, and parked at the trail head for the Coral Creek Trail. This turned out to be wrong.
We found out later that we should have parked at the Pinto Lake Trailhead on the other side of the river to access the Cline River Gallery. Luckily for us, there was a good WI3 climb on the north side – Nightmare on Elm Street.
We spotted the ice after we’d realized we were on the wrong side of the river and had turned around to head back. On our hike in, we had walked past it without seeing it. When we walked back to the top of the ice, we found some cordelette around a tree near the edge. The photo above was taken a few days later from the other side of the river.
Beta:
- WI3
- single pitch
- lower from a tree anchor at the top of the climb
- climb back out on top rope
- we used our 70 meter rope, a 60 meter rope would have been stretched from where we belayed
- the approach is about 1.5 km from the parking lot and about 50 meters total elevation gain
Access
From the Icefields Parkway, turn onto Highway 11, the David Thompson Highway. Drive to where the highway crosses the Cline River and drive across to the other side. Parking is on the left at the trailhead for the Coral Creek Trail.
The Approach
Below is the map I recorded on GaiaGPS showing our approach to Nightmare on Elm Street. The purple line is our route and the ice climb is in the red circle. We initially hiked past it and then turned around. The blue line is our approach to Cline River Gallery a few days later, which I will write about in a separate trip report.
The parking area for the Coral Creek Trail has an outhouse and a kiosk with a map of the area.
We started our hike on the Coral Creek Trail. It was very well defined and easy to follow.
The trail traversed the hillside, going over a bridge where a creek flowed down toward the river.
Here we left the main trail and headed downhill, toward the river.
The main trail carried on traversing the hillside.
We crossed another, smaller bridge as we made our way downhill.
We arrived at the river. The trail turned right to follow the river upstream.
After a while, the trail went up a steep hill, moving away from the river.
It brought us up above the river.
Here the river flowed through a narrow canyon far below.
We began to see ice on the other side of the river. When I took this photo, I didn’t realize i was near the top of Nightmare on Elm Street. We continued along the trail from here.
We realized we should have been on the other side of the river for the main Cline River Gallery climbs and we turned back.
As we hiked back, we noticed this large ice flow. I found out later it is called Nightmare on Elm Street.
We hurried back to see if we could build a tree anchor and lower down to the river so we could climb back up.
The Climb
Accessing this climb requires the climber to be lowered from above.
I took this photo from the other side of the river to show the belay area. We found a tree with cordelette but it was pretty close to the edge of the cliff.
We preferred to belay from a tree further back where we could sit more comfortably. The rope ran over the ground as we lowered and climbed but there were no sharp edges or rocks to damage it.
After being lowered, we stood on a small ledge of ice just above the water.
Looking up, there’s lot of ice to climb. About 30 meters of good ice.
It was slushy and wet on this warm March day but still a lot fun.
Further up the climb, the tree above on the left is the tree with cordelette. We set screws for directionals to climb different lines here.
Nightmare on Elm Street was a fun moderate climb. Since you come down from the top, you don’t have to lead, making it good for a casual, lower commitment day in a beautiful setting.
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