Ice Climbing Niagara Falls

I figured, given our current winter weather situation, this would be something we could consider. I mean, you spent between 1 and 5 hours yesterday shoveling out your driveway, how much harder could this be?

Well, a lot harder, to tell the truth. Just ask Canadian climber/adventurer Will Gadd. Will just became the first person ever to climb frozen Niagara Falls.

From The New York Post:

More commonly associated with the daredevil pursuits of highwire walks or riding the powerful cascades in a barrel, Gadd, 47, made history when he took the opportunity of the area’s annual freeze to scale the 180-foot frozen cliffs next to Horseshoe Falls.

 

Gadd may have claimed the glory of being first over the lip, but he didn’t climb alone. His partner — who achieved the same remarkable climb just hours later — was a fellow Canadian, 34-year-old Sarah Hueniken.

 

She was left huddling in an ice cave for several hours partway up the route, to avoid being hit with chunks of ice, National Geographic reports.

 

Sounds like a great time already, huh?

First up on the climb was an area Gadd came to call the “cauldron of doom,” where the waterfall crashes into a hole in the ice. If he had fallen in, he could have hit rocks, drowned or frozen to death, he says.

 

He survived that challenge but nonetheless was hit by the low temperatures. “That climb beat me up,” he said, after making three ascents of the route. “I may have reached the top, but Niagara won the war. At the end of the day, I was hypothermic. That waterfall did a lot more damage to me than I did to it!”

 

I think I'll stick to ice-trudging up my driveway.