When people talk about world-class ice climbing, Newfoundland rarely comes up in the conversation. As a New Englander, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I had chased steep ice in the Canadian Rockies, Québec, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. But Newfoundland wasn’t on my radar.

Then, in 2006, I sat with Ryan Stefiuk, my frequent climbing partner, to watch a slide show with a crowd of ice climbers packed into a gymnasium in Keene Valley, New York. The speaker was Joe Terravecchia, who told tales of spindrift pouring down rock walls, thigh-deep bushwhacking through tuckamore (thick, gnarly spruce growth), near-fatal avalanche scares, heavy snowmobiles stuck in deep snow, and vomit-inducing ferry rides just to reach western Newfoundland. He wasn’t exactly selling it. But the routes! They were huge. Joe clicked through photo after photo of 750- to 2,000-foot ice lines spilling into the fjords. Clearly, first ascents waited for anyone willing to make the long journey and brave the nasty elements.

Probably most people went home that evening thinking Joe was nuts. Alaska sounds easier than Newfoundland, they said. Not us—we were hooked. But there was one big problem: There was no guidebook, and no one who had been there, not even Joe, would give us additional information. “It’ll be great,” he told me over the phone. “Just go up there.” Ryan and I ordered a topo map of Gros Morne National Park. We pored over Google Earth. I found a big summer waterfall several miles into the backcountry. That’s where we would start.

The following winter, Ryan and I packed a car with skis, snowshoes, climbing gear, extra cram- pons, tools, beer, and single malt and headed for Newfoundland. We left my old farmhouse in Vermont, and after 14 hours of white-knuckle winter driving, we pulled into the ferry dock in Sydney, Nova Scotia. An overnight ferry dropped us and our car full of gear in Channel–Port aux Basques, Newfoundland. January is not a hospitable time to be on the big island. Driving the four hours from the port toward Rocky Harbour, near Gros Morne, road signs warned of winds over 100 km/h. Branches on the stunted roadside trees all pointed in the same direction.

The next morning, with the thermometer reading -15°F under rare clear and windless skies, we drove to the village of Trout River, parked out at Birchy Head, and trekked across frozen Trout River Pond, hopefully toward the climb I had found using Google Earth. A warm sunrise crested the hori- zon as we trudged around a bend at the Narrows. The entire face came into sight. There it was: a big ribbon of yellow ice, just as Google had prom- ised. Eight hundred feet and maybe WI6, or so we imagined. Intimidation crept in. The second lake we needed to traverse to reach the climb was not frozen, and we were forced to boulder sideways along a steep, icy wall above open water. Once at the base of the climb, elated, we started up a pitch of unprotectable thin ice. After a couple more pitches of beautiful ice with a fun WI5 section, we stood on top of our first big route in Newfoundland.

Was it a first ascent? We had no idea, and we didn’t care. It was an amazing day of adventure. We celebrated with cold beer and a hot shower back in town. The lack of shared information hadn’t dampened our spirits. If anything, it boosted them.

Newfoundland is an English-speaking island nearly the size of Ohio in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, north of Nova Scotia and south of Labrador. Gros Morne National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, preserves 697 square miles of the Long Range Mountains along the west coast. Centuries ago, Vikings settled on these western shores and the native Beothuk tribe eked out a rugged existence along the many bays. In the summertime, tourists flock to hike the trails and take boat tours through the dramatic terrain, where steep-walled freshwater fjords were scooped out of the surrounding tablelands by ice age glaciers.

In winter, the gawking crowds are gone. Fishing boats and lobster traps line the shores in small villages, stored on dry land and waiting for warmer weather to return. In the scenic fjordlike ponds, winter climbing in Newfoundland really got started—albeit very late in North America’s ice climbing history.

In the summer of 1994, Terravecchia traveled with Jeff Butterfield and Chris Kane to southern Newfoundland to climb rock in Devil’s Bay, near the town of Francois. The next fall, he went back with his future wife, Karin Bates, and put up Leviathan (9 pitches, 5.12a), the classic of the big cliff called Blow Me Down. He also climbed rock on Newfoundland’s south coast with Casey Shaw. Terravecchia, now 60, is a highly accomplished rock and alpine climber who runs a carpen- try business in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Shaw, 59, works with Patagonia’s R&D department and now lives in New Mexico. During their spring trip, the pair started talking about the possibilty of big ice further north in Newfoundland. They made plans to visit Gros Morne that coming winter, hoping to find ice routes above Western Brook Pond, the largest of the miles-long freshwater fjords. But that winter proved to be too mild on the maritime island.

The following winter, in February 1997, the pair boarded the ferry in Nova Scotia, heading to Newfoundland. During the ride, they saw photos of Pissing Mare Falls, a free-falling waterfall that drops about 1,000 feet to Western Brook Pond, in a tourist brochure. Once in the vicinity, they met a local man, Rex Hewlin, and pointed to the brochure photos: “We want to climb that!” Hewlin agreed to take them to the Big Level, the flat, tundra-covered tablelands above Western Brook Pond. Hundreds of feet deep, the pond below rarely freezes, making it nearly impossible to ski or snowmobile across the surface to reach climbs. Shaw and Terravecchia spent 12 days in their alpine camp, climbing five major routes up the walls below.

Even on the first new route of this trip, the duo learned of the dangers that lurk on Newfoundland ice climbs, many of which follow chimney or gully systems from the talus along the shoreline to abrupt finishes on the tundra. The pair climbed in heavy down parkas as wind swirled around the high walls. Partway up the route, a massive chunk of brittle ice spontaneously broke off a wall high above, smashing apart as it fell. Ten-foot-thick sections of ice hurtled through the air. Shaw, who was leading in the back of a 15-foot-wide groove, hugged the steep ice. He had nowhere to hide. Like cars dropped from a crane, the frigid blocks smashed into the icy face, breaking up just before they shot past him. Belaying from a niche in the ice below, Terravecchia watched the cold chaos careening 500 feet down the wall onto the talus below. They dubbed the route Fear of Frying (650’, IV WI5+), a tongue-in-cheek reference to the ubiquitous deep fat fryer in every Newfoundlander’s kitchen, as well as their fear of dying. Up top, they crawled back into the only shelter they had on the open terrain, a small Bibler tent they had brought. Shaw had frostbitten his nose.

Paul Fenton, who then lived in Rocky Harbour and is now a guide in Nain, Labrador, called Shaw and Terravecchia to congratulate them on the first ice routes ever climbed above West- ern Brook Pond. He then immediately called Jim Bridwell, urging him to visit. The pair headed straight into Ten Mile Pond, where they did the first ascent of Spirit of Beothuk (1,000’, WI5), an obvious classic route that has seen at least five ascents now.

Over the next few years, more climbers trickled in to southwest Newfoundland. Canadian Tim Auger and American Joe Josephson arrived and headed immediately for the back end of Western Brook Pond, where they put up Undaunted Courage (650’, WI4) on the most obvious moderate flow there. In 1999, Shaw, Bates, Terravecchia, and their friend Steve Larson arrived for a six-week visit, aiming to reach a massive gully and chimney system above Western Brook Pond by Zodiac inflatable boat; Larson had managed to bring a small outboard motor and a gas tank as carry-on luggage on an Air Canada flight! The temperature was too warm for climbing, however, and Bates and Larson eventually headed home. Shaw and Terravecchia stayed for another three weeks, and when the temperature dropped, they flew to the Big Level with bush pilot Rick Adams, rappelled down to Western Brook Pond, and made the first ascent of Captains Courageous, a 2,100- foot WI5+ route.

By 2003, word was slowly leaking out. Québecois ice climbers Bernard Mailhot, Benoit Marion, and André Laperrière headed up to Newfoundland and lucked upon cold conditions that left Western Brook solidly frozen over, allowing them to ski ten miles into the base of the cliffs and camp there. They returned to Québec with three new routes...or so they thought. Upon arriving back home, they learned each one was a second ascent.

The lack of information about Newfoundland’s early ice routes was soon to create a little stir among the Northeastern climbing community. Shortly before Ryan and I first visited Gros Morne in 2008, Canadian climbers Louis Philippe “LP” Menard and Yan Mongrain had been up in the area. Not realizing they could hire a local resident to snowmobile them into Ten Mile Pond, they had skied the 10 kilometers up and over Gros Morne Mountain via the summer trail, across the tundra flats, down into the fjord, and back up and out again. Camping out, the duo sent a couple of hard lines on the Cholesterol Wall, then excit- edly reported their achievements to the climbing magazines.

Unfortunately, their routes had already been done. Baby Beaver (700’, WI5 M6+) and Tunder- ing Lard (700’, WI5+ M5) were established by earlier climbers, one of whom exclaimed anony- mously online they had “climbed the place silly.” An online debate ensued over the ethics of keeping first-ascent information private, only to claim the ascent once another unsuspecting party reports it.

The lesson learned was, when it came to Newfoundland, it might be safest to assume that most routes in the area had already been done. However, Gros Morne was—and still is—far from climbed out.

After I caught the Newfoundland ice climbing bug, no other place mattered as much. I had been to the Canadian Rockies, climbing routes like Polar Circus, Weeping Wall Direct, Curtain Call, and more, but I have not returned since. Stefiuk and I keep going back to the island, drawn by the unknown and by the friendly Newfoundlanders.

Over three different trips starting in 2008, with the help of local residents and their snowmo- biles, we put up a couple of first ascents and did second ascents of established Ten Mile Pond clas- sics, ticking off Stratochief, Weather Vein, Fat of the Land, Hide the Baloney, and Spirit of Beothuk.

In 2014, Stefiuk, on his fourth winter trip to the area, this time with Bayard Russell and Chris Beauchamp, headed into a back gulch off Parson’s Pond. The trio, accompanied part of the way on snowmobiles by a crew of friendly beer-drinking locals, found several large ice flows that Stefiuk had seen in online photos of summer waterfalls. The trio established a broad 1,000-foot WI5 they called Newfin’ized. (A few days before that climb, Russell had informed the friendly locals, with whom they had partied late into the night, that the visitors had been left destroyed. One of the locals quipped, “You’ve been Newfin’ized!”) A few weeks later, Terravecchia and Will Carey visited the same gulch, establishing the seven-pitch mixed classic The ’Arding Slot (WI5+ M6) and a steep ice route, Got Me Moose B’y (WI5+). They also put up Drop of the Pure, a 600-foot WI5+, in Bakers Brook Pond.

In 2016, starting from a hunting cabin at the back of Parson’s Pond, Stefiuk, Beauchamp, and I snowshoed for an hour to reach the Barrens Wall, a quarter-mile-long cliff that offers a half-dozen 400- to 500-foot ice routes which, if located anywhere in the United States, would see numerous ascents each winter. Knowing the obvious routes had been done, we spied a striking line that had formed partly as spray-foam ice on the right end of the cliff. Starting on blobs, I led up the slightly overhanging first pitch, stemming to ease the pump. Strong winds had sculpted big fans of ice hanging over the top of us, leaving a perfect nook for a sheltered belay. The air was calm under these umbrellas, but we could hear the wind whistling around the corner. Leading out, Ryan teetered on one foot, wind whipping his jacket like a luffing canvas on a tall sailboat. With each lull in the blasts of wind, he made more progress up the 180-foot pitch. Another moder- ate lead brought us to the top. Later, Terravecchia confirmed a first ascent. We named the route Between Wind and Water (600’, WI5), the climb on the cover of this edition.

A few days later, with direction from Terravecchia about a sure-thing FA, Stefiuk and Beauchamp put up a wild 350-foot WI6, which they named Dangerously Weak, at Bakers Brook. At the top of the overhanging flow, Stefiuk chopped a hole barely big enough to squeeze through to finish his lead. The day was bitter cold, and with wind chill hitting -25°F, I had decided a party of three would be inappropriate on a hard route. So, with my partners’ approval, I opted to solo a 2,000-foot azure blue WI4/4+ ice line I had seen nearby. Predictably, my two-hour solo climb, a hopeful first ascent, turned out to be the second ascent. Fenton had done it with a partner more than ten years earlier.

With the weather closing in fast, our snowmobile ride arrived after we all had descended from our climbs. Visibility narrowed from a quarter mile to a hundred feet. Walt Nichols, our snowmobile operator from Rocky Harbour, urged us to be quick. After a long, blinding ride back across the pond, he stopped the machine in the woods, out of the dirty weather. We were think- ing he needed to relieve himself, but he surprised us by grinning and pulling out a small flask of whiskey. “Yis, b’ys!” he exclaimed in a thick Newfie accent. We all toasted the fact we wouldn’t be spending the night out in an emergency snow cave.

In recent years, action has centered on Ten Mile Pond, the most easily reached and densest collection of routes in Gros Morne—and specifically on the steep and intimidating Cholesterol Wall. Prone to spontaneous ice fall, the Cholesterol Wall has had its share of accidents.

In the early 2000s, a huge section of ice collapsed with a roar like a cannon when Terravecchia and Shaw were climbing up an icy gully below the center of the wall. Shaw escaped injury, but Terravecchia suffered a broken leg and bruises from head to toe. With no rescue services in the area, the pair self-rescued the six miles to their car. Shaw recalls that Terravecchia didn’t want to go straight to the hospital. “No, they’re gonna cut off my Gore-Tex suit!” he said. With help from Shaw, he changed out of the pricey one-piece suit at their rented cabin, showered, and got into more expendable clothing before getting treated for the fracture.

Then, in 2003, higher on the Cholesterol Wall, this time climbing with Andy Tuthill, Terravecchia’s lead rope was snagged by a many-ton dagger of ice that broke off above him. The heavy ice pulled out slack in the rope and then suddenly released it, dropping Terravecchia a hundred feet, down past Tuthill. Impact from the huge fall snapped his arm and fractured his hip, knocked him unconscious, and lacerated his face. Tuthill, a Yankee hardman, continued to hold tight as the rope zipped through his belay device, melting through his insulated glove and burning down into his palm, but keeping Joe off a ledge 20 feet further down. “I’d be dead right now, if it wasn’t for him,” said Terravecchia.

In 2015, properly warned of the dangers, Americans Will Mayo and Anna Pfaff started work on a new route up the overhanging center of the Cholesterol Wall. A large section of the upper hanging flow had already fallen off, leaving the wall theoretically a bit safer. After several days of ground-up climbing, Mayo and Pfaff aided and then freed the burly mixed route Apocalypse Now (720’, WI7 M9). Maintaining the clean-climbing precedent set by earlier winter climbers in Newfoundland, the duo installed no bolts and removed any fixed pitons and hooks they had placed in thin seams after their ascent. Mayo returned in 2016 with Ben Collett and Chelsea Rude and put up a harder variation: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (720’, WI7+ M12).

When Mayo and Pfaff returned to Newfoundland in 2017, Terravecchia, the old master, asked them to help him complete a longtime dream. Still fueled by his first trip to Gros Morne two decades earlier, Joe wanted to climb the steepest line yet at Pissing Mare Falls. He and Casey Shaw had climbed The Last Beothuk (1,000’, WI5), left of the famous waterfall, in 1997. In 2000, Joe, Casey, and Karin Bates climbed White Drift, the island’s first WI6, and in 2010 it was Spraylordius (also WI6). Now, with Shaw having headed home after waiting out a week of bad weather for an attempt, Terravecchia teamed up with Mayo and Pfaff to tick off Dreamline (1,260’, WI6+), with Joe leading the crux pitch of overhanging spray ice, two decades after his first climbs above Western Brook Pond.

March of 2019 saw the first known free-solo ascent of the Cholesterol Wall. Ryan Stefiuk, Lindsay Fixmer, and I had snowmobiled to the park boundary on the far side of Eastern Arm Pond, using snowshoes the remaining two and a half miles to reach the climbs in Ten Mile Pond. We were aiming to do the second ascent of He Speaks for Rain (650’, WI6), a line of steep columns that spill down the western end of the long cliff band. But I was restless. Conditions were also good on Fat of the Land (950’, WI5+), which climbs leftward on the Cholesterol Wall, avoiding the more dangerous and overhanging central wall. After some inner struggle, I decided this would be my best chance to attempt a solo of this route.

I walked the three-quarters of a mile back to the Cholesterol Wall alone. I had brought a 60-meter rappel cord and a 15-liter Mammut speed pack. After digging a neck-deep trench through the snow to reach the base of the ice, I started climbing. A little less than halfway up, I stopped on a snow ledge below the crux for a sip of tea and to enjoy the blue-sky view over Gros Morne Mountain. I had it all to myself. A little over an hour later, I placed a tool in the tundra grass at the top. Leaving noth- ing behind, I used a long screw to make naked threads in the ice for rappel anchors. Hanging out as I slid down the rope, I could fully relax and enjoy the steepness of my surroundings—the rat had been fed.

As I walked back up the frozen pond to meet my partners, I looked at the incredible collection of routes lining the cliffs, some already done and worthy of repeat, others offering tempting first-ascent candy. The fact is, despite how much has been done, first ascents are usually completed every year in these fjords. Often, the easier routes have been ignored by visiting expert climbers, leaving WI4s just waiting for the first touch of tools and crampons. There are unclimbed routes at Ten Mile Pond, Trout River Pond, Bakers Brook, Parson’s Pond, and perhaps other places where a topo map or Google Earth might lead you in the wild northland. Just pick a spot, head in, find an appealing line, and start climbing. Someone will let you know if it’s a first ascent...or maybe not. If the climbing is good, and if the adventure feels the same, does it even matter?

About the Author: Alden Pellett, 59, is part of the product development team for CAMP and has been a professional photographer for over 30 years. Pellett recently built his own home 10 minutes from the ice climbing at Lake Willoughby in Vermont.

The following information is provided as an online supplement to the above article, which was published in AAJ 2021. 

Getting There

If you’re heading to Newfoundland from the Northeast U.S. or Canada, driving your own vehicle is the cheapest way to climb in the Gros Morne area. A ferry service (Marine Atlantic) sails from North Sydney, Nova Scotia, to Port aux Basque, Newfoundland. The ferry crossing is approximately seven hours. Once off the ferry in Newfoundland, Gros Morne National Park is a four-hour drive from Port aux Basque.

If you’re coming from afar, Deer Lake Regional Airport (YDF) serves the west coast of Newfoundland. It can be reached with a short flight from St. John’s Airport (YYT) on the eastern tip of the island. Car rentals can be booked near the airport in Deer Lake. The town of Rocky Harbour makes a nice base camp area for Ten Mile Pond. Cabins and other lodging are available in several towns around Gros Morne.

A park pass is required for any climbs within Gros Morne National Park; they can be picked up in Rocky Harbour. In the Parson’s Pond area, you don’t need a permit to climb. Only permitted operators are allowed to drive snowmobiles into the park. You can easily find someone locally to hire.

Contacts

Peter Thurlow, Norris Point (lodging): (709) 215-7189

Walt Nichol, Rocky Harbour (snowmobile rides, lodging): (709) 458-7210

Rick Endicott, Gros Morne Cabins, Rocky Harbour (snowmobile rides, lodging): (709) 458-2020, grosmornecabins.ca

Sunrise Bakery, Café & Cottages, Parson’s Pond (lodging, food, snowmobile rides): (709) 243-2305, sunrisecottages.ca

Shallow Bay Motel & Cabins, Cow Head (lodging): (709) 243-2471