Ueli Steck and Simon Anthamatten Meet "Polarity" (Hardwear Sessions)

See More Pictures of Ueli and Simon on Flickr.

By Ueli Steck

October 19, 2007

We are already here in Canada. I am here with Simon Anthamatten, a strong young Swiss climber. We left Switzerland on October 15. Our Idea is just simple. Climbing in Canada. Ok, to be a little more precise, we are here to climb some Alpine routes in the Rockies. We have several ideas for what we will climb.

And we will focus on Big alpine Routes. There are a lot of good alpine mixed climbs and nobody has repeated them. And if we see some new lines of course we will try them! But the Weather in the Mountains is always the same. In the end it is the weather and the conditions that will decide what we are going to climb! There is another goal on this trip: Not sitting around!

So, right now I am sitting on the couch at Will Gadd's house. Don`t worry, it's not that bad. Today I am happy to sit. We are back from a really good climb! When we arrived, we heard about a line on Snowdome Peak. 3 Canadians climbed a new route to the right of Slipstream. Polarity WI 5+ Grade VI 800m. First Ascent: Dana Ruddy, Cory Richards, Ian Welsted. They climbed this really fun alpine route in two days. The Team climbed just to the end of the Waterfall ice. After there is the Glacier Serac that they didn`t climb.

They shared some pictures about the route and about the last pitch. Simon and I were straight away fascinated. I have never climbed such a long ice route. Yesterday (Friday 18.Oct) we left the Car at 6.30 am. We didn't bring any bivy gear, we decided to be fast or not to finish the Route.

But not finishing the Route is definitely not an option!

9.00 we racked up on the lower part of the route. The first 500 meters are just some easy Ice. To avoid the second option (not finishing the route) we soloed the first part.

We roped up before the real steep Ice. The weather was bad, it was snowing since we left the car. Both of us were very motivated, otherwise we would stop the climbing. After two pitches we were totally wet. Even Gore Tex has some limitations...

The temperature dropped quite a bit. I just started to lead Pitch 4, where the climbing takes place on nice Grade 5 Waterfall Ice. I was very focused on my ice axes when I heard a scary noise. Beside me a huge ice collapsed. Luckily this didn't hapen one pitch before, otherwise Simon and me would be straight below it!

It was exactly 2 pm when I reached the top of the last pitch that was done by the first ascent. The Iceroof on the next Pitch looked scary. I understand why they did't want to climb it. When Simon arrived on the belay he told me he would not want to climb the next pitch. So it was on my to climb or to descend. I decided at least to try it. I will maybe not have any other chance to climb a pitch like this on a big alpine Route!

I went for it.

Here it was hard Glacier Ice. So the Ice was always cracking and splitting. When I started to climb I knew exactly that everything could break and I could fall off... But I kept going. The roof was then totally fun. It was real climbing! So we finished the route just below the huge snow cornice . And we added the last 50 meters on the route to the snow.

Maybe one day the cornice will be smaller and somebody will top out on the summit another 10 meters...

After 800 Meters of rappelling we returned to the Car at 6.15 pm.

12.h 15 Minutes Car to Car...

Today we are both happy sitting on the couch and looking forward to have a good Dinner. And we will see what happens next!