Watch Climbers on Crystal Tear and Grotto in Grotto Canyon

Grotto Canyon is one of Canada’s most popular go-to winter climbing areas, with a fun 55-metre WI3, a short WI5 and WI4 and plenty of mixed climbing. Few climbers know that farther up the creek is a 200-metre WI3 M4, which sometimes forms as pure ice.

On March 9, Gripped editor Brandon Pullan and Calgary climber Cory Rogans teamed up for a variation of Crystal Tear WI3 200m in Grotto Canyon they called Beach Bypass M4 and then climbed a very fat Grotto Falls WI3 55m.

Pullan got to swing the new Black Diamond Reactors and said, “Much simpler than other aggressive tools on the market, which makes them better suited to these long alpine-style mixed routes. Nice for going over bulges and hooking tiny flakes in the rock. Definitely top-three ice tools to hit the market in the past year.” Scroll down for a short clip.

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Thanks @cory_rogans_ for the fun day! Crystal Tears was too melty, so we climbed our Beach Bypass up fun 5.5ish rock to the left and eventually ended up high and left without climbing the main ice curtain by going up a fun gully and then some mellow ledges. It was gloves off high on the rock as the sun was sending big sluffs and slides down. We chased it with a lap of Grotto Falls, by far the fattest I've seen it in years. Great to swing the new Black Diamond Reactor tools, new go-to for this style. #spring #climbing #grippedmagazine #grottocanyon

A post shared by Brandon Pullan (@brandonpullan) on Mar 9, 2019 at 7:34pm PST

Crystal Tear and Grotto Falls