'No Use In Crying', New route on Upper Weeping Wall

"No Use in Crying” IV, M7, 205m FA: Rob Owens, Jon Walsh Feb. 13/08

I have climbed on the Weeping Wall and surrounding climbs perhaps 60-70 times. Many of these trips have been very memorable as it is simply such an amazing area. Ten minutes of walking to endless potential in terms of climbing lines. A few years back, during a particularly fat season, I went through and counted 16 different 'lines' that the weeping wall had to offer. Many of those were nothing more than unnamed albeit, aesthetic variations to the famous climbs we all know well. It wasn't until a month or so ago when I was climbing the Right Hand of Lower Weeping Wall, with my girlfriend Marion, that I spotted this line off to the left of the fatter ice lines. I wasn't even sure if it had any ice on it but was intrigued enough by the 'Scottish/Canadian Alpine' nature of the feature; snow covered rock, just enough cracks for natural protection, and thin splatterings of ice throughout. This is the type of climbing I have grown very fond of lately. Climbs that will be relatively hard, without the need of bolts and that offer the chance of perhaps 5 star climbing experiences!

Approach: Climb the Lower Weeping Wall, Icefields Parkway, BNP (on the FA we did Sniveling Gully). From the top of ‘Sniveling Gully’ the line takes the major rock weakness on the upper headwall about 100 m to the left of the top of ‘Sniveling Gully’.

Route: On the FA the route appeared to lack any significant amount of ice but surprisingly 80 percent of the tools placements were in ice, often ice filled cracks. The route is a very high quality, all naturally protected, mixed line. The nature of this climb offers great training for the terrain often covered on the larger mixed faces in the Canadian Rockies. The climbing is never too desperate, with pretty good gear placements, but overall quite sustained. It is unknown how much ice this feature holds in a normal year but is expected to be icy in most years due to the melt freeze cycles that this wall is continuously exposed to.

Rack: 2 x 60m ropes, 6 ice screws (3 x 10cm, 2 x 13cm, 1 x 17cm), 6-8 mid sized nuts, 6 pitons (mostly knifeblades), an ice piton/hook, cams from .2 - #3 Camalot, with doubles from .3- .75, and 12 runners/draws.

Pitch 1: 60m, M6. Follow a shallow, right facing, iced up groove to a big ledge below a short steep wall. Piton and a horn belay.

Pitch 2: 60m, M6. Climb the iced up vertical corner crack for 20m to lower angled terrain. Avoid continuing up ice to the big tree. Instead trend along a snowed up, sketchy slab to deeper snow below a dry, shallow scoop. 2 nut belay is fixed in the bottom corner.

Pitch 3: 25m, M7. Climb the right side of the scoop to a small ledge. Once the appropriate gear is in place, launch over the first of 2 overhanging bulges with surprisingly good tool placements and good opportunities for gear. Belay on lower angled terrain, off ice screws. Rock gear can be found if the ice is too rotten.

Pitch 4: 60m, M6. Start with 20m of dry tooling up to a left leaning, right facing corner. Follow this, with funky mixed climbing and a spectacular ice climbing exit to the top of the wall. Ice screw belay.


Every pitch has amazing quality....if you’re into this kinda thing! Jon and I both agree it is one of the best winter routes we’ve ever done.

Cheers,
Rob O.