A beginner's guide to ice climbing

1. The beginning of any ice climb normally involves a hike to the actual climb through deep snow and trees, often up a steep slope, while carrying a heavy rucksack full of gear. This is called bush-wacking. If you're lucky it will be a popular climb and someone else will have done the breaking trail for you.
2. Ice climbs are done on frozen waterfalls, which are very beautiful things. You'll have lots of time to admire them while you're standing at the bottom belaying.

3. You probably won't be admiring the frozen waterfall quite so much while you're trying to climb it. At that time you'll most likely be cursing the unique properties of ice that make it too hard to punch holds in while at the same time it breaks off in big chunks that crash down on top of your belayer and ruin the hold you were trying to punch in. You may find yourself thinking wistfully of gin and tonic.
4. You punch holds in the ice with crampons and ice axes. You're held up by a climbing harness and rope. If someone's leading the climb rather than top-roping, they'll be using lethal looking ice screws. Even if you aren't normally excited by hardwear, you will quickly become au fait with all this paraphernalia.

 

5. If you're lucky enough to go ice climbing with someone who's very good at it, listen to their advice and try to follow it. Even if it's your little brother. 

6. Eventually - if you kick your front points in straight, flick your wrist while whacking the ice axe, find footholds properly balanced below your handholds, and keep your heels down and your bum out - you might suddenly find yourself most of the way up the waterfall, and realise with surprise that you're feeling focused, in control and not scared at all.
7. This is the time to feel incredibly pleased with yourself and give a little cheer. But keep that focus until you've abseiled back down and have your feet on solid snow again.

Me, quite a long way up a frozen waterfall

Field

Field is just off the Trans-Canada Highway in the heart of the Canadian Rockies and Yoho National Park. We drove here yesterday after Domhnall picked me up from Calgary airport, to stay a few days with Jess & Jason in their beautiful old wooden house. Field is tiny and funky, full of people who live for the outdoors, for skiing and the mountains, with some great places to stay (including Jess and Jason's very own gorgeous suite), a nice pottery, and occasionally elk roaming the streets. Geologists are generally excited to learn that it's the home of the Burgess Shale fossils ('biology's Big Bang', as the Smithsonian describes them), but as you can't get to the fossil sites in winter, which is the only time I come to visit, this cute video is the closest I've been.

 

I came here first six years ago and have been back every couple of years since. Most memorably after a nine day ski tour across the Wapta-Yoho glaciers - such an amazing trip, made even better by the warmth, whisky and hot shower at Jess & Jay's after we skied out. So far this time we've not been as adventurous - just a little cross country ski round Emerald Lake this afternoon. The views were a bit Scottish but it was FUN to be out on skis again!

Domhnall skiing on Emerald Lake

Countdown to forty.....

OK, I'm putting it right out there. As much as I was trying to pretend it wasn't happening, I am really, actually turning forty, in two weeks time. Or (thanks Ruairí, Maya and Evan!),

Truthfully, I wasn't that bothered about it until the last few weeks. But facing up to being forty while finding myself suddenly single again in pretty shitty circumstances wasn't exactly what I'd imagined. It just added to the rubbishness that 2013 has presented so far. All I wanted was to run away and hide in Canada and maybe manage a tiny bit of fun on the slopes to take my mind off real life.

But this week, real life started to look much rosier, because I have amazing family, friends and colleagues. All week they've been overwhelming me with good wishes, emails, cards, phone calls, Bruce Springsteen tickets, fun nights out, and books to read on holiday. Then this morning when my watery colleagues surprised me with coffee-time cake and champagne, and later on the girls brought brownies and balloons and birthday candles; well, no-one can stay sad faced with that kind of cheering up.

So already I feel better. Forty years old?? And so what?! I'm fitter and healthier than ten years ago. And in spite of the last two months, mostly happier too - and soon I'll get back there. My fortieth year is going to be filled with friends and family and new places and new challenges and old pleasures revived. And it starts with a fabulous holiday with all of these good things included as standard. Canada, here I come!

New year, new...

You think it's too late to celebrate the new year? It's never too late, I hope.

A couple of weeks ago and in great need, I was introduced by a friend to Pema Chödrön, who said, among much other terrifying and yet oddly calming Buddhist advice, that “to be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” Bye bye nest, again. Hello, brave new world. Chin up. We never know what's round the corner.