Rockies Ice, Tainted Love, Rectal Squirrels and Grizzly Bears

Big new routes and grizzly bear attacks have made for an exciting week in the Canadian Rockies.

In the spring of 2008, Jon Walsh and Raphael Slawinski made the first ascent of Dirty Love V M7 on Mount Wilson, it was Walsh’s third attempt and Slawinski’s first. It is one of the most difficult new long alpine mixed routes climbed in the past decade.

U.K. climbers Nick Bullock and Greg Boswell had visited the Rockies a number of times. Being some of the keenest Euros to visit the Rockies lately, they had climbed a number of the classic big mixed routes. After talking with Walsh about Dirty Love, they planned on spending a day sussing the approach and packing a trail for an attempt later in the week.

Having nearly reached the upper climb, after a day of loose mixed pitches and snow slogging, they started their descent. It wasn’t long after they turned around that a grizzly bear showed an interest in their presence. The bear ran after them and bit Boswell, which left big holes in Boswell’s leg. Luckily, after some retaliation from Boswell, the bear left them alone.

Their ordeal has been well documented online, read about the full story on Bullock’s blog, here.

Parks Canada has announced they will leave the bear alone and Dirty Love remains unrepeated.

New Routes

During the first week of December, Jon Walsh and Michelle Kadatz climbed pure ice variation at WI6+ to Walsh and Marc-Andre Leclerc’s 2014 route The Plum V M8 WI6 in Storm Creek.

They made the ascent only days after climbing a difficult all-gear variation first-pitch to an unreported 2011 route by Slawinski, Eamonn Walsh and Pierre Darbellay called Rectal Squirrels, also in Storm Creek.

At the end of November, Slawinski, Juan Henriquez and Colin Simon completed an old Rockies’ project on the north face of Lawrence Grassi above Canmore.

The route is an obvious chimney system with a smear of ice leading to the first wide section. It had been attempted by Rob Owens and Sean Isaac nearly a decade ago, but the steep walls required bolts and they never returned. In 2014, Slawinski attempted the route with Ian Welsted and Sam Eastman, their day turned into a bolt-the-big-roof projecting session before descending.

“The gash” now goes by the name Tainted Love and Slawinski has yet to release a topo or grade for the close-to-Canmore route. In the 2015 Canadian Alpine Journal, Welsted wrote an article called “Above Canmonix,” which tells the story about the alpine potential above town.

The north face of Lawrence Grassi has a long winding couloir that is a popular alpine ski. Read a report by Andrew Wexler about the “Canmonix” couloir, here.

In other news, a number of Canadians are travelling to Scotland this winter, including Walsh, Slawinski, Welsted, Paul McSorley, Marc-Andre Leclerc and photographer Paul Bride. For a story from last year’s festival, see here.