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I wrote this article and submitted to ACC Thunder Bay Section Newsletter (Alpine Club of Canada). Since it is in English, I post it in "Xian Liao".
It seems that every big country has a city that the residents believe that their beloved city is the center of the universe. It is Rome to the ancient Roman Empire, nowadays New York City to the states, and in Canada, it is Toronto. At the center of the Canadian Universe, Young Street, also known as Route 11, is the bull’s eye. Route 11 is the divider of the city of Toronto. Route 11 ends at the shore of Lake Ontario, but few has realized that if driving on Route 11 northwest bound, nine hundred kilometers later, you will go through a vast boreal forest. There is a stretch of two hours without human settlement or service station. In a moonless night, the road is so dark that people think the headlight of their car is dead. If you keep on going for another four hundred kilometers, you will be at Orient Bay, the best waterfall ice climbing area east of Mississippi.
I started ice climbing in early December 2003 by attending the Basic Ice Course offered by Yamnuska. After I came back from the Rockies, I searched the ACC website trying to hook up with ice climbers in the east. The photos and phones of the executives of the Thunder Bay section were conveniently posted on their website. After carefully studying Frank and Leo’s wrinkled weathered faces, I drew the conclusion that they were harmless old guys. So I accepted Frank’s invitation, hit the road on boxing day.
I spotted Leo and the gang outside the Nipigon Husky Truck Stop. It was easy to spot ice climbers; they were fit, friendly, all in their climbing outfit. I followed with Frank and Leo on Holy Golly first. Leo led the climb, the first climb fours weeks after he had two broken ribs. It was a two-pitch fun WI2, I reckoned that the two gentlemen used it as a test piece to check me out. After I passed the first test, I was sent to Mellow Yellow. Frank carefully watched my two laps on the route. He noticed that my left swing wasn’t right. After his coaching, the ice on the left hand side suddenly became as sweet as the right hand side. The next day, I was recommended to tag along with Randy and Jan, two hard men. Randy and Jan displayed the Canadian and European methods in terms of setup anchors and belay stations. Safety is a main concern for all. And we are all curious about what people use in different regions. I noticed that climbing is something regional. Folks from different region has its own way of doing things.
Although I was prepared for the ice climbing, I was not prepared for the Northern hospitality displayed by the Thunder Bay climbers, among them, Leo being the most exceptional. The first night at cabin, he fed us with beaver stew. Surprisingly, the beaver meat wasn’t that gamy after all. The next day, Frank did his infamous triple-bypass breakfast (a meal is so heavy-duty that a triple-bypass heart surgery is needed eventually for those who eats it daily), a scrambled egg dish heavy on cheese, bacon and ham. I had a second helping, which sustained me for three climbs that day and lasted until dinner time. Leo told me I could stay at his home for three nights. Leo and his wife Colin hosted me and Jan, another climber in his home. Later Jan’s wife Gesine also joined. Colin fed us with delicious meals and homemade cookies. Leo made sure we enjoyed our climbs by having dry gear, sharp crampons and good beta. Leo insisted we have New Year’s Eve supper at his home. “It is better than any restaurant food,” Leo proudly declared, Colin nodded with a proving smile, and the two grand kids were climbing up and down the laps. Because the grand kids had the sleepover at Leo’s home, we three climbers spent the New Year’s Eve at somewhere else. I opted for the McVicor’s House, a B&B located in downtown. The house was built a century ago by a wealthy merchant. After changing several hands, now Shirley and Barry operated the six-room B&B. The house had its vintage charm; the superb breakfast earned a big thumb-up, too.
I was very fortunate to climb with an established Alpinist Jan for three days. Jan was a certified German Mountain guide with two Greenland expeditions under his belt. The first expedition was a three-months coast-to-coast traverse with a few first accents (FAs) and a bunch of early accents along the way. The second time was a 70-day kayaking from 70 to 65 degrees latitude along the east coast. The three Germens often camped on the floating ice, and sometime had to drag their kayaks on ice for days. After mentioning these two trips, there was no need to detail how Jan sends WI6 and cranks 5.12 trad. Even his frequent visits to Chamonix and Dolomites seemed trivial in comparison.
Jan told me I am a good climber. I became suspicious about the compliments from top climbers since my Rocky trip. Steve Holeczi, an ice climber with a handful of hard F.A.’s in the Rockies, was my instructor at Yam’s course (these FAs are documented on Will Gadd’s www.gravsports.com). On the second day of the course, while I was struggling on a short WI3, Steve enthusiastically told me, “Jane, you are machine!” Yeah, right, I replied by telling him that I am a slow computer. Machine, indeed.
I ventured to Eagle Canyon with Jan on Monday, the 29th of December 2003. Eagle Canyon is about 50 kilometers from Thunder Bay, on a private recreational compound run by Harvey Holmet and his son. Dripping water down from the top of the canyon, Harvey created more than ten climbs from short fun WI2 up to scary scatchy WI6 and hard mixed routes. He offered a discount price for the ACC members. After signing a wavier, Harvey led the way in his ATV, with his hyped miniature dog running aside. Even as half-way Americanized as I was, I was amazed to see the driveway reaches all the way to the bottom of the climb. One can literally belay from his SUV if there is no worry about falling ice chunks smash the windshield. There is a fire pit that a camp fire can be lit to warm frozen hands or better, toast marsh mellows. We declined Harvey’s kind offer of driving us to the top of the canyon of setting up a top-rope. Jan parked his truck one hundred feet away from the falls and he started leading a solid WI3 as a warm up. I seconded and cleaned the route without difficulty. Jan told me I shall keep my feet apart, tools centered like a triangle. Then Jan moved on to do a long WI4. The first 20 feet was more difficult than it seemed from the ground. Jan got very excited, kept telling me, “Jane, this is amazing, very interesting!” Since then, I learnt to judge the difficulty of a route by how frequent the words “amazing” and “interesting” appeared. For example, the upper part of that climb became “interesting” again. It was so “interesting” that it took Jan ten minutes to finish the top fifteen feet. It was so “interesting” that I had to gingerly move up for fear a hard kick or whack would dislodge the whole chunk of ice from the rock. The next day, while climbing at Mount McKay, the upper part of White Lightening, was very “interesting”. Instead of veering left reaching the anchor from the easy sloppy part, Jan chose the direct line straight up. The straight line was so “amazing”, that it took me five minutes to traverse the last ten feet to the anchor.
After finishing climbing at Eagle Canyon, I found out the crampon left a one-inch slice on my Arc Teryx Gore-tex bibs. By the end of the trip, there were two more holes. The trunks were cut too generous for ice climbing. It was a common problem of almost all the Gore-tex pants/bibs on the market. In the evening, Jan gave me an evening tutoring by going through the textbook he and his partners edited. For the next two days, I tried to climbing like the textbook pictures. Jan’s wife, Gesine snapped several shots of me on ice so I could study while I am back to Toronto. Unfortunately, Jan’s book didn’t say how to climb cauliflower ice. So I chickened out on the “very very interesting” cauliflowers on my second visit to the Eagle Canyon. Later while discussing the climbs in the cabin, Jan announced the cauliflower was a WI5, which immediately mended my hurt ego, size petite femme. I decided to believe my partners’s encouraging compliments, inflated or not. I was in Thunder Bay for a week, climbed hard for six days with a rest day in-between. I started considering leading. But it was time to go back to my research. The unfinished proposals, progress reports were calling me. Time to play indoor with my nanostructured materials, which are also “amazing”, and quite “interesting”.
Saturday morning, after a shot of Leo’s coffee, and Frank’s triple bypass heavy-duty breakfast, I hit Route 11 towards Toronto from the cabin. After sixteen hours on slushy roads, passing blowing snow drift through the northern Ontario Crown land, Toronto suddenly appeared on the horizon like a mirage. The bright street lights made me dizzy. It was midnight Saturday night, young people jay walked on Young Street, laughing and talking on cell phone. Cabs swarmed outside subway station like roaches. It was a balmy 8 degree; the roads were dry and clean. It was no longer the moose, the snow drift, the treacherous turns that I had to watch out. After driving 1280 kilometers on Route 11, I was back to the center of the universe. Ice axe on my shoulder and helmet in one hand, I was walking on Campus of University of Toronto. White Ligtening, Mellow Yellow, Cascade, Eagle Canyon were all so far away; they were so distant that they existed at the edge of the Universe |
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发表于 2004-1-17 11:01
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发表于 2004-1-17 15:51
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