Why'd He Climb to the Top? They Told Him Not To
By WILL GADD
The New York Times
Published: April 8, 2006
I am an athletic and professional rarity — a semiprofessional ice climber. My job description reads: "Find the wildest, steepest, craziest ice on the planet. Climb it."
Most of my ice climbing is done on frozen waterfalls, but I have also climbed ice on the sides of a grain silo in Iowa and in melt caves deep under glaciers. But the wildest ice I have ever climbed was in the form of icebergs bobbing in the North Atlantic off the east coast of Canada.
Mariners call this part of the North Atlantic Iceberg Alley for a good reason — the Titanic is only one of many boats that have gone under after collisions with icebergs.
Such collisions are rarer today, but bergs are still a threat to shipping and off-shore oil platforms along the coast. The massive bergs could crush drilling platforms like tinfoil, so oil companies monitor them and use miles-long ropes and tugboats to guide them around the platforms.
Before climbing, I phoned a few of the "iceberg wranglers" for information, figuring the experts could tell me how to do it safely. But they all had the same opinion: Climbing on icebergs is a really bad idea.
Apparently, icebergs often roll over, break into smaller pieces and are extremely dangerous to get anywhere near, never mind to climb on.
Seldom have I heard so much negative commentary about one of my ideas. Fortunately, my climbing partner, Ben Firth, is relatively impervious to reason, and soon we were in St. John's, the capital of Newfoundland and Labrador. Unfortunately, there were no icebergs in sight.
We spoke with Denis Ryan, the captain of an iceberg-harvesting boat for a company that collects the bergs for the water. The ice is often more than 10,000 years old, making it the purest water on earth, at least according to company's marketing materials. The harvesters market the melt water as iceberg vodka, iceberg beer and plain old iceberg water.
Ryan also had succinct words for us on climbing the bergs: "Really bad idea. And there aren't any bergs here anyhow. You're going to have to go north to Labrador."
So Ben and I moved 628 miles north to the town of Makkovik, accessible only by air or ferry. We found a fellow adventurous spirit in Randy Edmunds, who runs the Adlavik Inn with his partner, Lori Dyson.
Many boat captains refused to take us to bergs. When the bergs roll, they can cause giant waves, which can flip the boat; and falling ice could easily smash the boat.
Edmunds said it was a bad idea to climb the bergs, "but we can use my small speedboat to put you on and off fast. But if the berg flips, you're on your own. There's not much I can do."
Ben and I deliberated on various safety tactics.
One reason the bergs make it so far south is that they are riding on the Labrador current, which is often only a few degrees above freezing. We decided to use lightweight kayaking dry suits in case we were forced to swim, but we worried that our crampons (basically sharp claws for our feet that would allow us to cling to the ice) would cut the dry suit's light fabric.
We also decided to use life jackets, but we could not use ropes for the climb because we did not want to be tied to the berg if it rolled. Ropes usually add a measure of safety to climbing, but in this case there just was not a good alternative.
Finally, we found an iceberg floating about 10 miles off the coast. As we approached the berg, it became apparent that the first problem would be getting on it — the swells were surging about six feet up and down the side of the berg. So, with the timing of a whaler throwing a harpoon, we had to time the boat's movement and stick an ice tool into the berg at the top of the surge.
"Crack!" was the sound as my pick bit into the ice, and Edmunds prudently gunned the speedboat backward, leaving me hanging over the cold water. The choices were simple: Jump into the water and swim for it, or keep climbing and hope for the best. I chose to climb.
The ice kept making the same horrifying cracks as I moved upward, but the really disconcerting part of the experience was the surf. I could feel it pounding through the ice with surprising force, and I noticed that my 60-foot-high berg was gently rolling in the swells. The sounds and movement were disorientating, so I tried to just focus on climbing. There was an easier way down the backside if I could make it to the top.
Once on top of the berg, I sat on a narrow saddle of ice and looked out over the blue waters of the Atlantic. It was an unusual position, an icy perch where nobody had ever been before or would probably ever visit again.
Moments like these are what I live for, and am also willing to risk dying for. I can only compare it to those rare moments in life where the colors are brighter, sounds clearer and the mind is open to the world. Those 30 minutes of climbing are burned into my mind, including the descent and the hop back into the boat.
"That was crazy," Edmunds said. I had to agree.
In a week's time, Ben and I climbed a half-dozen icebergs, and the experience was always a violent mental mix of terror and raw exhilaration.
There is something fundamentally amazing about climbing floating ice sculptures that possibly formed when saber-toothed tigers roamed the Earth, but in the end we decided that the experts were right: Climbing bergs is a bad idea.
