This article was originally published on GearJunkie.
At a normal entry level, ice climbing is pretty hard.
So when in 2020, a pair of the world’s best ice climbers claim to have sent a new level of difficulty at the world’s steepest ice wall, you can expect something epic.
“It’s absolutely huge,” Tim Emmett says in this short doc from YouTube channel Louder Than Eleven. “It’s right at our limit.”
Emmett joined with partner Klemen Premrl to create the massive, 131-foot line at British Columbia’s Helmcken Falls, developed by ice climbing godfather Will Gadd. The overhanging pitch only gets steeper as the climbers go higher, so the the crux “is literally the last move,” they explain.
They named the route Mission to Mars and rated it WI-13 — a new grade of difficulty in ice climbing.
