World-renowned ice climber captures the castle in Edmonton's Hawrelak Park
'It really is just exactly like being behind a frozen waterfall'
A week after scaling the tallest frozen waterfall in Canada, ice climber Will Gadd took on an Edmonton challenge that would make him the veritable king of the castle.
The ice castle, that is.
"They did a beautiful job with it, there's all these hanging icicles and features," Gadd told CBC Edmonton's Radio Active in a live interview conducted Wednesday while he was still on his way to becoming the first person to climb the castle.
"It's natural ice. It's just like what you would see inside a waterfall, a frozen waterfall. It's really cool."
The Alberta man started climbing with his dad while growing up in Jasper. Now based in Canmore, Gadd is an experienced ice climber and mountain paraglider who teaches, coaches and guides others in his sports.
The three-time X-Games gold medallist has climbed icebergs off the coast of Labrador and was the first person to climb the frozen Niagara Falls. In January, Gadd was named a UN Environment "Mountain Hero" for the environmental work he does through his guiding, teaching and public appearances.
Currently, he is promoting a short documentary, Beneath the Ice, about his trip last year helping researchers descend 328 feet into the Greenland ice cap. Last week, he scaled Della Falls on Vancouver Island which, with a nearly vertical drop of 1,445 feet, is regarded as the tallest waterfall in Canada.
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On Wednesday, he tackled the Edmonton Ice Castles in Hawrelak Park, which tops at 40 feet high. Nonetheless, Gadd wasn't underestimating the challenge.
"The ice is flowed, so I don't really know how that's going to work," he told CBC prior to the climb. "It will take a lot of focus, making sure I don't grab the wrong … " Gadd paused. "I mean, how does a castle work? There's not a book on that."
During his climb, he said the "really fresh" ice was tricky to navigate. "Understanding this ice castle is actually pretty technical," he said.
"But it's a really beautiful place. I'm going to bring my kids back here."
Gadd said he first reached out to the ice castle operators several years ago to propose the climb, thinking he'd like to add it to his list of unusual accomplishments.
The structures, which have been built in six cities, are created by growing 5,000 to 12,000 icicles, which are harvested by hand and individually sculpted into existing ice formations. The Edmonton ice castle opened on Jan. 4 and will close on March 16.
Gadd said he was excited that after 35 years of climbing, he'd added another first to his list with the ice castle.
"There's this cool thing you can do in a frozen waterfall where you get in behind the curtain of ice, and that's exactly like being here," he said.
"The sun lights the ice up and you can see through it and it really is just exactly like being behind a frozen waterfall. It's as close to ice climbing as you can get without actually going ice climbing."
