A posse of Bow Valley climbers stole the podium at the 20th annual Ouray Ice Festival earlier this month at North America’s biggest ice climbing event in Ouray, Colorado.
No newcomer to the festival, Canmore’s Will Gadd, 47, put in an impressive performance to claim the competition’s overall title at the Jan. 8-11 event.
And, on the heels of winning the speed event at the UIAA World Cup competition in Bozeman, Mont. in December, part-time Canmore resident Kendra Stritch, 32, took the top women’s prize in the Hari Berger Speed Climbing Competition.
Rounding out the strong Canmore showing, Sarah Hueniken finished second in the women’s mixed/difficulty event, followed by Katie Bono in third and Jen Olson in fourth. Accomplishing a rare double podium, Hueniken finished third in the speed event, with Bono taking fifth.
“It was an amazing competition for Bow Valley residents overall. The whole event reminded me of the comps back when the Canadians were the ones to beat at Ouray. Looks like we are again, neat,” said Gadd, who won his first Ouray competition in 1996 or ’97.
With men and women competing on the same routes at Ouray, it’s possible for women to win the overall title, as Germany’s Ines Papert did in 2005. In 2014, Stritch won the speed event with a time faster than all the men.
Gadd placed fifth in this year’s men’s speed event, winning over competitors more than a decade younger than him. But it was his performance on the tricky and challenging mixed/difficulty route, which incorporated a mossy crack that proved too tricky for any of the climbers to on-sight, that put him on top of the field.
Winning the overall title at this stage of his career came as icing on the cake after what he called the best year he’s ever had as an athlete, which included winning National Geographic’s Adventurer of the Year award for flying with fellow paraglider Gavin McClurg along the spine of the Canadian Rockies for 650 kilometres from Mount Robson to the U.S. border.
“I sort of thought I might start slowing down as an athlete, but last year was by far the best year I’ve ever had,” Gadd said. “I always say I’m done with competing, but I have a hard time watching a comp when I’m there. I’d always rather do it and suck than watch; doing is better than not.
“And I do love showing up and going all out to do my best,” he added. “A competition in any sport is the end result of a lot of training, and a test of how well you’ve forecast what the event will require you to do well at.
“It’s like performing in anything; there’s some magic and terror and joy when you’re doing something big in front of an audience, and it’s always a challenge to wring the best result out of that.”
For Stritch, winning her second major speed event of the season was gratifying, even though she knew she wasn’t climbing as well as she had in Bozeman.
“I struggled with my feet a bit,” Stritch said. “It was very featured ice with lots of bulges, which is very different from the vertical world cup structures.”
While world cup ice climbing takes place on 12-metre, man-made plywood and plastic structures, the Ouray Speed event runs on an actual ice wall that’s twice as high and featured with cauliflower-like bulges.
For Stritch, a naturally talented sprinter, that meant pacing herself on the side-by-side routes, which each competitor climbed once. The fastest combined time on the two routes reveals the winner. Her younger brother, Carter, placed fourth in the men’s speed event, climbing a bit faster than her.
“I’m going to have to stop training him,” she joked.
Following her win, Stritch was preparing to fly to Europe where she’ll compete in three UIAA Ice Climbing World Cup competitions, beginning with Saas Fee, Switzerland, Jan. 23-24. Then she’ll continue on to Rabenstein, Italy and Champangy, France.
Stritch said she’s looking forward to all three competitions, which have become familiar. This will be her fourth time competing at the Sass Fee world cup venue and her third time at those in Italy and France.
“I definitely know the structures, the villages, the travel to each of those places,” Stritch said. “That helps a lot. It takes away a lot of the anxiety knowing where you’re going, what you’re doing there.”
Eventually she looks forward to returning to Canmore sometime in March, the exact timing of which will depend on whether or not she travels to Russia for the world cup event in Kirov, which will include the 2015 Speed Climbing World Championships.
“If things don’t go well, I won’t spend the money to go to Russia,” Stritch said. “But if I do well, I’ll be expediting my visa to go to Russia. And I fully plan to do well.”
