Festiglace du Quebec

Every year since I started rock climbing in 2002 I have planned on attending the Festiglace du Quebec, no not to play with the mascot, Bonhomme, as I would probably push him down the nearest hill and happily watch him roll away from me. Nope the reason I have wanted to attend was to take part in some of the winter activities, skating and so on, have a drink in the ice hotel, and the main event would be to watch the world cup of ice climbing.

I have never had the chance to try ice climbing before but I have done a great deal of bouldering, some trad (traditional) climbing and even aid climbing (big wall stuff with webbed ‘steps’ that you slowly slide up as you move up the wall). The ice climbing that I have seen and my knowledge of the other forms of climbing I have done, tell me that ice climbing is a completely different beast.

It is as tiring if not more then Aid climbing with the added pain of being in the freezing cold pressed up against a solid wall of ice. Your hands are extended above your head 90% of the time. In this position when the novice climber ends their first climb and lowers their arms the most often reaction is known as the ‘screaming barfies’.

What are these exactly? Well pretty much literally what they are called, once the arms are lowered and the blood has a chance to flow back to the climber’s hands, the pain is so intense that the average climber drops to their knees screams in pain and proceeds to vomit from the intense and instantaneous pain -sounds like fun eh!

Another interesting thing about ice climbing is the characteristics of ice. In rock climbing you simply knock on a cracked piece of rock before you use it as a hand hold. If it sounds hollow find another hold as it may pull away from the wall and send you falling toward the earth below. In Ice climbing the idea is the same but ice is always changing from minute to minute depending on weather and it becomes much more difficult to judge if it will sheer off and leave you hoping that your rope and wall nuts will hold.

The festigalce holds competitions for amateur and pro climbers alike. There is speed climbing as in the video above (not in QC though couldn’t find a good clip) where the competitors actually rely completely on their own strength as they are not allowed to use the straps that you would normally have on each ice axe. There are also competitions based on the competitors ability to get past problems and crux in the climb i.e. over hangs.

So as I always say that I will make it each year but something always comes up, the last few years it has been usually exams or papers, so this year I am not going. Hopefully that will work.