“It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night.” – Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart

I must have already been thinking of a winter attempt on the Greenwood-Locke on the north face of Temple when, immediately after climbing the route in the summer of 1999, I drew up a detailed topo (PHOTO) complete with potential bivi spots. Of course I knew the long history of winter attempts on the route: the stories of storms, retreats and stubborn returns. The mountains we climb are only partly made of inanimate rock and ice; just as important, they are also made of the fact and legend of climbers’ struggles upon their flanks. My own first winter attempt (if it could be called that) came in 2001. Eric Dumerac and I made the mistake of camping below the route the night before, so we were already cold and uncomfortable when morning came and it was time to start climbing. Muttering something about the face being too snowy and out of condition, we turned our skis back towards the parking lot. Attempt number two in 2003 bogged down in the parking lot, when we got out of the car and realized that thirty centimetres of snow had fallen overnight. To blow off some steam, Ben Firth and I drove back towards the front ranges and, over two days, scrambled over the four summits of Mt. Lougheed for its first winter traverse.

This past winter we took the whole thing seriously indeed. We spent several days on Yamnuska climbing steep 5.8 corners with big boots, gloves and tools, learning what works and what does not. Ben and I were veterans of the young discipline of M-climbing, with its deadpoints, figure-fours and heel hooks. We liked to believe that this seemingly contrived activity had a relevance that went beyond the Gulag and the Cineplex. The Greenwood-Locke in winter, a snowed up alpine rock climb, would give us a chance to walk the talk.

The alarm went off at 3 a.m. We wolfed down some breakfast on the short drive from Canmore to Lake Louise, and soon were out of the car and skiing through the starry darkness. By the time we broke out of the trees below the face it was broad daylight. Stashing our skis at the base of the initial couloir (PHOTO) , we headed up. For the most part snow conditions were good, though in a couple of places we found ourselves wallowing up disconcertingly steep slopes. Sometime in the early afternoon we bumped up against the steep rock of the upper face (PHOTO). We banged in a belay, geared up and, after a swig of water, started up. To begin with, the initial groove even had a vein of ice in it, but that soon ran out. After that it was hooking small limestone edges and then frontpointing up them, cleaning snow from cracks for cams or blasting through it with pins. We had the leader climb with a light pack, while the second brought up the rear on jumars with a rather heavier one. Free climbing mattered a great deal to us, and jugging represented a definite stylistic compromise. But there was no denying that it was faster.

By the end of the afternoon we had climbed five ropelengths. Rather than continue and frig around in the dark, we fixed a rope and rappelled to a ledge we had passed one pitch lower. After chopping into the crest of a snow rib, we had fashioned a platform that would take most of our bivi tent. It is amazing the difference that getting zipped up inside even an imperfectly pitched tent makes. The thin walls shut out the exposure and, once we had finished brewing up, sleep came easily. The morning was well advanced by the time we had jugged our fixed line and sorted ourselves out for the next lead. As we chopped through the cornice topping a groove onto a small and windy stance, we congratulated ourselves on our decision to stop early the night before. Pitch followed after pitch, none desperate but all challenging: a knife edge of snow (PHOTO) traversed a cheval, a steep snow-choked groove (PHOTO) , a clean headwall with frontpoints biting into tiny dimples... We were moving fast, wasting no time, but also intensely enjoying ourselves.

Drytooling over a bulge at the top of the last “hard” pitch, we were ecstatic. The few moderate traversing pitches (PHOTO) that remained were a mere formality, and before long we were on top, if that is what an incongruous scree slope a couple hundred metres below the actual summit could be called. The Ten Peaks and the Goodsirs beyond stuck out of a sea of valley cloud. We lingered in the yellow rays of the setting sun, not wanting the moment to end. Then it was time to go. Eschewing the summit, we traversed the windswept west slopes and ran down the tourist route. Reaching Sentinel Pass a few minutes ahead of Ben, I lay watching the stars beginning to appear in the cloudless sky. The next morning we retrieved our skis from below the face, and by early afternoon were back at the car. The adventure was over.

During the drive back we were already making plans to return to attempt the obscure Robinson-Orvig, a.k.a. the Sphinx Face of Temple. A couple of days before the appointed date however, Ben emailed me with bad news: a long-neglected artificial intelligence project demanded his attention, and he was unable to go. Weather and snow conditions were good, and I urgently tried to think who else might be interested. The guidebook, with its talk of “atrocious rock,” was not going to make it easy to find someone. Then I thought of Valeri Babanov, who had just moved to Calgary. We had only met the previous weekend at the Canmore Ice Festival, but of course I had long known of him by reputation. I picked up the phone. “North face of Temple... probably no more than one night out...” Never having even seen the face before, Valeri flipped through the guidebook. Yes, it looked nice; yes, he was interested.

I picked him up on Saturday at 4 a.m. During the drive we sorted out translations of such terms as “secure” and “on belay,” and by 10 a.m. we were stashing our skis below the face. It was surprisingly cold; within a few minutes of stopping I was wearing everything I had, and was still shivering. There was nothing for it but to start climbing. A short quartzite band yielded quickly, and soon we were slogging up the snowfields (PHOTO) that make up the bulk of the route. Hour after hour went by, the steep buttress of the Greenwood-Jones on our right flowed down and past us, yet the crumbling yellow bastions guarding the top of the Sphinx Face did not seem to be getting any closer.

It was late afternoon by the time we were finally anchored at the base of the crux chimney. Valeri, unfazed by this being his first major climb in the Rockies, racked up for the lead. As he fought up the chimney, a week of late nights preparing lectures and grading papers caught up with me and I struggled to stay awake. But I woke up soon enough as I followed the pitch; rock and protection were better then anticipated, but the climbing was steep and demanded attention. From the belay I looked up at the exit, blocked by overhanging chockstones. It was getting late, and the narrow confines of the chimney were not a comfortable place to spend the night. I grabbed the rack, stepped over Valeri and, crampons scratching on the smooth limestone, started squirming upwards. A few metres up I hooked what looked to be some blocks frozen in place. But as I weighed them they yielded; slamming onto my other tool, I could only watch helplessly as they crashed down the chimney.

Valeri was doubled over in pain; I desperately hoped that he was not seriously injured. After a minute or two he straightened up and indicated I could continue. A couple of metres higher I sent down another block. Miraculously, yet again we narrowly avoided disaster. Drytooling over the chockstones proved easier than anticipated, and soon I was cruising up the lower-angled but loose gully above. By the time I found a solid belay in the shattered tile it was almost dark. Valeri came up the pitch on Tiblocks, manhandling the pack I had left halfway up the chimney. Scratching a small platform out of frozen scree, we settled down to Ichiban and tea. The night was relatively warm, and from our small perch we could look down on the lights of Lake Louise twinkling a kilometre and a half below.

A blast of snow on my face woke me up. From inside the warm cocoon of my sleeping bag I looked out on a changed world. Clouds enshrouded most of the neighbouring peaks, and a fierce wind drove powder snow across the face. Foregoing breakfast, we packed up and kicked steps across the ledge (PHOTO) to the base of the exit gully (PHOTO). One long pitch later we were sitting astride the crest of the East Ridge. The plume of snow blowing off the upper ridge convinced us to give the summit a miss. We rappelled down the south side and suddenly found ourselves in a different world: no wind, no visibility, and bottomless snow. Looking for the descent couloir under these conditions would be dangerous at best, which left but one option.

Fortunately we had not pulled the ropes yet, and we yarded on them liberally as we wallowed our way back up to the ridge. A long rappel landed us on the traverse ledge where we had spent the night. We retraced our steps to the top of the crux chimney and set anchors down it, keeping a wary eye out for dislodged rocks. Cramponing down the slopes (PHOTO)below amidst streams of spindrift, we kept the rope on in case the first person down set off a fresh slab. But luck was with us and we reached the bottom without incident. We laughed when we got back to our skis: pummeled by the windblast of a serac avalanche the previous day, they stuck out of the snow at odd angles. Strapping them on and cutting across the fresh debris, we headed toward the valley. Though Temple still reared up cold and white, the collapsed snow bridges over the creek already told of the coming spring.