Will Gadd climbed the frozen Helmken Falls, the world’s most challenging ice climbing spot.
Indescribable beauty, bordering on madness. Will Gadd managed in 20 days to climb the most difficult rock and ice route of our time to one of the largest waterfalls in Canada – the 141-meter Chelmken.
Gadd discovered this spot in early 2010, stating then: “I have just returned home after climbing incredibly steep ice so difficult that I have never seen such difficulty anywhere in the world.”
The Helmken Icefall was such an extraordinary event in the world of ice climbing that even a rough estimate of the difficulty of its routes was difficult. For example, one of them – Wizard – was assigned the difficulty of WI 10, despite the fact that before that the most difficult ice climbing routes had a maximum of WI 7+.
The exploration of the new ice arena was immediately included in the immediate plans of Will Gadd and his British friend Tim Emmett. Their main task was to create a new route with climbing steep ice formations using ice axes and “crampons” without going to the rocky area – this is how the Overhead Hazard track was born.
After completing the route, Gadd was nominated for Travel of the Year by National Geographic magazine.
Source: Red Bull
