Will Gadd Shares Festiglace Memories and Talks About Recent Win
The veteran Rockies-based climber and guide first competed at Festiglace with the legendary climber Guy Lacelle in the late 1990s
This past weekend saw some of the world’s leading ice climbers travel to Quebec for Festiglace, one of America’s longest running ice climbing festivals. There were clinics, presentations and several exciting rounds of competitions.
After the dust settled, it was Will Gadd who won in the difficulty category and Jeff Mercier in the enduro category, for the full results visit here. We touched base with Gadd, who’s won several ice climbing comps over the years, including three gold medals at the X Games in the late 1990s, shortly after this year’s Festiglace.
When was your first time at Festiglace? First time: ’97? My Quebec friend, JP, and I had travelled and competed in France together at one of the earliest ice comps, Courchevel, and he helped organize a comp at the Festiglace. It was at the very beginning of the mixed climbing explosion, and it’s funny to remember now, but a lot of people were talking smack about the idea of climbing rock with ice tools to reach icicles. Pont Rouge is perfect for mixed climbing because the groundwater seeps make hundreds, maybe thousands, of stunning icicles on the gently overhanging walls. And the “rock” is some sort of horizontally layered sedimentary disaster, but because it’s so cracked and featured you can climb anywhere on it and connect the icicles. It’s weirdly perfect! Anyhow, I won the difficulty comp the first year, and then Guy Lacelle and I won the Enduro comp one year when that was the format, maybe 99? In any case, it’s around 25 years since I first competed there, which seems like an impossible number.
When was the last time you competed in an event? I competed in Ouray before Covid and won maybe ten years ago but didn’t top the route, then competed and didn’t win and didn’t send the route, and competed again and sent the route but placed in the top five or so because I was slower. So it’s been five or six years?
How does it feel to take the top spot? Winning is always fun. I’m also happy to have placed second in the Enduro comp the first day, which is an insane event where you climb as many pre-protected routes as you can in three hours with a random partner. I didn’t expect do well in that as it’s a new format for me, I don’t know the routes well, and there was a really very strong field including multiple competitors who had just placed top five in the Edmonton World Cup. I knew it wouldn’t take them long to figure out the weird Pont Rouge rock, and it didn’t, plus all the super strong locals! My friend and rock star of a human, Jeff Mercier, won the Enduro, which put two guys older than 50 on the podium with some people half our age.
That’s unusual in almost any physical sport! The morning of the difficulty event I was totally fried from climbing the week before, teaching clinics, competing in the Enduro the day before and doing a show later that night. That’s not really a recipe for high performance outcomes. But the energy with all the competitors, crowd, route setters, and friend was pumping, and so I got stoked and sent the route, which is always my first goal. I got pumped in the middle and had to shake, then really screwed up a move up high that cost me at least 30 seconds so I didn’t think I’d win–there were some super strong people after me including Jeff. But it was good enough, and to win 25 plus years after the first time feels almost surreal. I’ve been incredibly fortunate in my career as climber.
What’s been one of the most special parts about Festiglace this year? I think what I loved most about Festiglace was the incredible stoke for climbing from the locals. I knew some of them almost 30 years ago, and there we all were still sharing the joy of mixed climbing together, along with the next generation. There’s just so much deep history in Pont Rouge both for the sport and me personally, a lot of deep memories from Guy to competing to swinging around on icicles in space, it’s all really intense and honestly pretty emotional. So many personal connections with friends, people I met years ago and talked with who I got to re-meet, there’s just a lot in Pont Rouge that matters deeply to me.
It’s also important to recognize the incredible amount of hard work the routesetters put in. The routes basically have to be re-set every year as the walls change, and Carl and his team are total superheroes for all they did. And so many volunteers out there in -20 making things works, it’s truly astounding to me that so many give so much to support the event. It’s a lesson that people and place create magic.
One thing that’s neat is that back in the day when I did the first ice climbing world cup I competed with a great French climber, Manu Pellissier, and a wonderful Hungarian woman named Ildi Kiss. At this year’s Festigalce I noticed there was a Milà n Pellissier on the competitors list, and when we got a chance to talk he said, “I think you know my dad, Manu, and mom, Ildi Kiss…” So I’m climbing and competing with two generations of a great family, and that’s a special thing to experience too! I’ve had that happen in paddling and rock climbing lately too, and I just celebrate that I’ve lasted long enough to get to do that with my friend’s kids, and my own too.
In the Enduro I was paired with Helias Millerioux, who is a Piolet d’Or winner and hell of a good guy. He worked his ass off during my first block of climbing, and I did my best for him during his, and after it all we were laughing because it felt like were on an alpine climb together. Our team slogan was, “Push the team forward!” like it was an alpine climb, and we did. That teamwork is really cool too.
Sarah [Hueniken] also did incredibly well in a really strong field of women, podiums in both! In fact, in the Enduro comp four of the top ten or so were women! Same with the difficulty, two women in the top five or so, it was really impressive to watch! Thanks to the Festiglace team, all the volunteers, fellow competitors, Pont Rouge, Arc’teryx and my wife, Sarah, yeah!!
Switching it up to gear, what are your thoughts on the new Black Diamond Hydra ice tools? I worked more on these tools with Black Diamond than anything else I ever have. We workshopped them in Canmore, Utah and Colorado, and I’m really happy with the collaboration and results. They climb beautifully, and in my view are the best new tool Black Diamond has released since the Cobra. I’ve climbed huge ice routes with them, M-Hard, alpine stuff, they just swing incredibly well into ice, and are stable on mixed. There are at least three headweight levels, which is great if you’re climbing hard cold Quebec ice and then nice warm Ouray stuff, or drytooling where you don’t want any headweight.
The picks are really low displacement as well. I’ve been on Cobras for pure ice for nearly 25 years, and these tools swing better than they do, plus the new picks are nearly an unfair advantage for ice. My final production protos have seen hundreds of pitches of ice and mixed in the last year, super solid. And I do love letting other athletes try them, there’s been a universal, “These are really sweet!!!” response, which is satisfying after a lot of years where that wasn’t always the case. I think they’re going to kick ass.
Check out the latest buyer's guide:
