We checked out the Cline River Gallery ice climbing on March 7, 2026. It was a great place to spend a few hours running laps on top rope. There were a few interesting, steep lines. We were one of three parties climbing there that day and there was enough good ice to accommodate all of us.
The first party there arrived before us and claimed a route called Pure Energy. It is a single pitch, WI4+. We climbed a route left of Pure Energy which was shorter but still had some fun steepness. Dan led and set up a top rope anchor. We ran laps on top rope, trying a few different lines.
Beta:
- WI3 – WI4
- single pitch
- there was a tree anchor where we climbed, left of Pure Energy
- descent: rappel the route or climb to the trail at the top and walk out
- our 70 meter rope was easily long enough
- the approach is about 1.5 km
Access
From the Icefields Parkway, turn onto the David Thompson Highway, Highway 11. Drive to the Pinto Lake trail head, just before the highway crosses the Cline River. There is a parking lot with an outhouse.
The map below was recorded using GaiaGPS on my phone. The blue line is our track to the Cline River Gallery. The purple line is our track from the day we climbed Nightmare on Elm Street, a WI3 on the other side of the Cline River.
The Approach
From the parking lot, an obvious trail heads up the hillside, towards the river.
It looks like a road but as per the sign, vehicles are not allowed.
This is where the hiking begins.
After only a couple of minutes of walking, the road narrows and looks more like a trail.
The trail is pretty obvious. Just stick to the well-worn path heading up the valley. The river is not visible at this point.
The well-travelled trail even includes a fixed line here to help hikers climb a steep, slippery section.
In some places, the trail is marked with orange ribbons tied to to trees.
After 20 – 25 minutes of walking, the trail was high above the river and we saw the climb Nightmare on Elm Street on the other side.
A couple of minutes later, we got a good view of the Cline River Gallery ice.
The approach trail takes a gully down to the river just before the ice.
The gully is an obvious right turn off the main trail, heading down to the river.
This is near the bottom of the gully. The river was open and flowing fast. We turned left to go to the ice.
The Climb
We were hoping to climb Pure Energy which is out of sight to the right of the ice in the photo. Another party was already on it. Seems like this one is the main prize in this area.
We chose to hike up the rolling ice to the steep ice on the left side of the photo. Another party came after us and climbed the steep curtain in the middle of the photo.
I took this photo part way up the rolling ice. Dan is further up, near the spot where we set up our belay, just below the rock face.
We found a few fun lines up this section of ice. One of the big trees at the top, just left of center, had some cordellette around it. We used it as an anchor to set up a top rope.
This is a view of the ice we climbed from our belay area on the left.
At the end of the day, we decided to climb out instead of hiking back down the rolling ice and then up the gully. Dan climbed first and then belayed me up, multi-pitch style. There was a good trail along the top and we followed it back to the top of the gully.
Cline River Gallery was a fun place to run some top rope laps on steeper ice. I would love to go back and try Pure Energy. When I do, I will write a trip report for this website.
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