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What was my greatest anxiety about my trip to the Rockies? Not that the weather would turn bad. Not that I would take a monster whipper. No, my greatest fears concerned sleeping arrangements, for I had learned that our party of 8 would be sharing double beds in the condo we'd rented.

Joe Happy on Super Block

Bill Piekos had selected as his bedmate the engaging Jennifer May, sole female in the group. This struck me as grossly unfair, though they have been living together for 12 years. This left me at the mercy of 6 men: all of them burly, hairy, and, I assumed, prone to high-decibel snoring.

Since this is to be a climbing article, I won't linger over how boudoir matters turned out. Suffice it to say that the Ice Deviants-with emphasis on deviants-are a close-knit group.

Our condo was in the centre of Canmore, strategically nestled between two large supermarkets and two well-stocked liquor retailers. We had a wonderful view of the ice tower for the upcoming Canmore Ice Festival.

There was no ice on the tower.

There was no ice anywhere. Where was winter? The temperature was ridiculously balmy, reaching 10° Celsius on the day we arrived. This didn't bode well. All south-facing routes would likely be unclimbable. We decided that we would go to Field and check out the north-facing beer climbs.

Climbing Louise Falls

The ice in Field turned out to be great, if somewhat punched out. I joined Rob and Ewan to climb Carlsberg Column (90m III, 5). What a sweet first pitch, a steep line that Rob led. We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves as we descended… then we met Andriy and Danylo, otherwise known as AK47 and Sidearm, who had come to Canmore on a weekend climbing blitz. They had arrived the night before us and had driven straight to Polar Circus (700m V, 5). After what was surely a refreshing couple hours of car-napping, they cruised up and down the Circus in 11 hours. The next day they came to Field and climbed Super Bock (300m III, 5), and after that Carlsberg Column, where we bumped into them. The following day they would drive into the Ghost and climb the famed Sorcerer (185m IV, 5). Here were two guys who knew how to push the limits. Humbled, we continued on to the car.

Rob was driving, Ewan in the passenger seat, and me in the rear. As we drove off, the car started beeping annoyingly. Rob stopped, beeping stopped. When I mentioned that just maybe the parking brake might be engaged, Rob was quick to dismiss me-he never uses a parking brake. We started moving again, the beeping started again. It was going to be a long drive. Rob began to rag on modern technology, how they never test anything, how when they fix one thing they ruin another, blah, blah, blah. I didn't help the situation by erratically messing with the radio controls from the back, unbeknownst to Rob. He was convinced the car was going into electrical convulsions. In the meantime Ewan had taken out the car manual, quietly read through it and announced, "the parking brake is on…"

The next day saw us back in Field, climbing Guinness Gulley (245m III, 4). We climbed as two teams: Bill, Joe and Vic on one, and Nick and I on the other. Nick was gracious enough to let me lead every pitch. This was another fun, aesthetic line. I found the stress level manageable-until, as I was about to start the final steep pitch, I caught sight of Nick taking a pee dangerously close to our ropes.

Rob on Carlsberg Column

A day later, Rob, Vic and I tackled Murchison Falls (180m III, 4+), a climb I'll not soon forget. It's on the Icefields Parkway between Bow Summit and Saskatchewan River Crossing. The hike in was a pleasant hour and a half. You can't see the climb from the road, making for an impressive scene when you suddenly catch sight of the massive cirque. The obvious 4+ line started on the left side-so naturally we decided to climb up the sun-baked right side. At the base of the main falls I took over the lead. It took a lot out of me-including one tooth. The ice was uniformly bad: hollow, powdery crap. I would place ice screws knowing they couldn't hold a fall. I wanted to back off, but I couldn't deal with the idea of down climbing nor lowering on shaky screws, so I had to keep going up.

Just as I was coming to the end of my rope-literally and figuratively-I reached a ledge with some solid ice for a belay. It was beautiful up there: the majesty of the cirque, the lonely desolation of the Rockies in winter. Yet I couldn't take it in. It had been a terrifying climb-the hardest I'd ever led. But once Vic had reassured me that he'd found it burly too-and once my drawers had dried-I started to take some pride in a sickly enjoyable pitch.

Rob followed onto the ledge, howling, "Lead me to the belay! Lead me to the belay! I'm blind! I can't see!" We didn't understand. Had he been hit by ice? Had a shard punctured his retina? No, turns out his glasses had fogged up.

Murchison Falls Cirque

We struggled up the next couple pitches, but stress had gotten the better of us, and our team dynamics suffered. Rob brought us into a fantastic ice cave belay, about 20 meters from the top, but that was it-we decided that we needed to descend. It was 4:00 p.m. and none of us wanted to hike back in the dark. Best to leave it as one of those stories that ends, "We coulda made it, but…"

I have egotistically focussed on my adventures, but the trip contained much more excitement. Rob, Ewan and Nick encountered a mad Scotsman on Bow Falls. Nick led on Professor Falls. Joe led Super Bock, but claimed that the high point of his trip was a massage he and Bill had gotten in Canmore (I refrained from asking what they meant by "happy ending"). Joe and I feared that Jennifer had gotten lost descending the dreaded Canmore Junkyard. And poor Bill stayed in bed sick-getting up only at night to raise a glass (or 5) with us and hear our stories.

Climbing with the Deviants is more than just pushing numbers. It's like belonging to one big, happy family. OK, dysfunctional family, but whatever.