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Christmas Tree is an Ice Climb in China

Watch Canadians Will Gadd and Sarah Hueniken rope up to try the festive looking ice climb

There are a number of ice routes in the Henan province of China, but Christmas Tree is the most spectacular. It was first climbed by Liu Yang and Chaun He at WI6. You can see below why it is named Christmas Tree.

Christmas Tree WI5. Photo Lie Feng./Chaun He
Christmas Tree WI6. Photo by Chaun He

It’s unknown how often the route forms, but there seems to be a number of potential lines, including a massive cave at the base that leads to daggers. Christmas Tree was repeated by Will Gadd and Sarah Hueniken in not-optimal conditions.

Gadd said after, “I’ve climbed a lot of crazy ice formations on bolted mixed routes, but on this climb it was full madness onsight micro nuts, ice screws driven straight up into broken-off petals and every skill I’ve learned in more than 35 years of obsessive climbing to put the pitch together into something mostly reasonable. I love climbing when you forget everything but the climbing, and it becomes a 3d chess game pitting your vision to see a line against the lactic acid of your arms and physics.”

Christmas Tree WI6

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