Aurora, 600 m vertical, WI6
FA: Valeri Babanov & Raphael Slawinski, December 28, 2004

Mt. Amery sits on the west side of the Icefields Parkway some 20 km north of the Saskatchewan River Crossing. Its north face (PHOTO) presents a broad concave sweep of rock capped by a long hanging glacier. Two smears of ice always form on the edges of the summit icecap. Aurora is the right-hand smear and, unlike the left-hand smear which never touches down, usually forms completely. Although formed by glacial runoff, the route is safe from serac fall. It offers alpine ice at its finest, with hard climbing in a stunning position.

Approach: Park on the side of the road at the confluence of the Alexandra and North Saskatchewan Rivers. Ski up the flats of the Alexandra for about an hour to a small but obvious creek draining the north face of Amery (PHOTO). Turn up the creek. Within a few hundred metres the drainage narrows into a canyon. At this point take to treed slopes on either side. Both options are equally uninviting, entailing as they do wallowing up through dense growth and depth hoar (PHOTO). Eventually emerge from the trees into the cirque below the north face (PHOTO). Some large boulders on the right offer sheltered camping spots (700 m of elevation gain from the car to this point, 3 to 4 hours depending on the amount of trail breaking). The start of the route is another 500 vertical metres away up a deceptively large snow slope.

Climb: Start up a narrow chute, the only weakness on the right side of the face. A few mixed moves gain the ice. This is followed past some steep sections (WI5+) to a snow gully (PHOTO). A couple of bail anchors from earlier attempts may be found on this pitch. Climb the gully to where it opens up, at which point two possibilities (PHOTO) present themselves. For the sake of speed, we climbed the ice on the right (PHOTO) in two pitches (WI4); however, the aesthetic iced-up chimney straight up likely forms more frequently. A long snow gully leads to a rock band, breached by any number of short thin ice smears. Above the rock, make a long traverse left on snow ledges (PHOTO) to the base of the final cascade (PHOTO). This is climbed in 3 or 4 increasingly difficult pitches (up to WI6) to easy snow slopes just right of the seracs (PHOTO). At this point the summit is just a walk away; however, we stopped at the top of the ice.

Descent: Reverse the route with up to ten rappels (all but one from the ice) and some downclimbing.

Gear: 10-12 screws (no need for stubbies, but some 13 cm ones are useful), and a few pins. Later in the season the ice on the first pitch may be detached and/or missing, in which case a good selection of cams comes in handy. We approached in the afternoon, camped under the highest boulder, climbed the route in a long day, and camped again before coming out the following morning. The route might be possible in a huge day trip, but approaching and descending through the trees in the dark would not be fun.