Canadian Climbs Up Frozen Niagara Falls

(Photo Credit: Red Bull)

It's one thing to climb up snow-covered cliffs, but an icy, flowing waterfall?

In the newest Red Bull adventure, Canadian Will Gadd manages it, making a historic climb on Niagara Falls. Though lots of people have climbed down the falls, Red Bull says that Gadd, from Alberta, is the first person to ever actually go up it.

The climb was only possible due to the cold weather that Ontario has been experiencing lately, freezing the falls into some climbable ice. "I checked out the spot we were thinking of climbing in the summer," Gadd said. "You'd be swept away by the torrential downpour then. On a warm winter, there's no climb here."

Gadd worked with NYS Parks Department and NYS Parks Police to ensure both that the climb would be done safely and that it would not harm the natural environment. "We're doing it on natural protection," Gadd said. "No bolts. There won't be one thing left in the ice that wasn't there to begin with, and that's the best possible way to do it."

(Photo Credit: Red Bull)

Gadd makes the climb look pretty simple in the video, but it sure wasn't a walk in the park. "The ice is formed in layers," Gadd said. "That means there's a layer of ice, then snow (with a lot of air), then another layer of ice. It's unstable, for sure.” He rated the grade at WI6+, or the hardest level for this climbing style, and was careful to clear the dangerous hanging ice from the day before. “I was taking off pieces the size of small cars," he said.

Gadd used ice axes, crampons, and a special Black Diamond prototype “ice hook” for the climb. He says that one of the biggest challenges was the falling water. He was so close that he could reach out and touch it with his tools, and at one point he was climbing on the ice frozen behind the falling water.

"That climb beat me up,” Gadd said. “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!"

Other recent accomplishments by this internationally renown ice climber include climbing a new route on Helmcken Falls, climbing ice in Kilimanjaro, and getting top honours at the Ouray Ice Festival.

Check out Gadd's climb up Niagara Falls below.