ADVENTURE
Le Carcajou, French for the Wolverine, and “as elusive as it is dangerous.” This is how we described our ice climb on Bernard Peak, a climb that will be forever remembered as an adventure of a lifetime.
I t was winter 2013, and I was on a sea kayaking expedition on Lake Pend Oreille. I had just spent a sub-zero night in front of a fire on a frozen and desert - ed beach on the southern end of the lake and was now paddling my way beneath the breathtaking and hum- bling cliffs that tower precipitous- ly below Bernard Peak, in the Coeur d’Alene Mountains. As I looked up at the rock faces, I immediately noticed that every gully, chute and blank face was covered in a thick glaze of ice. There were massive ice climbs everywhere. As a rock climber, who had just recently delved into the world of ice climbing, I knew I had found some- thing special. But that something was so far beyond my skill set at that point, I couldn’t fathom what it would take to accomplish any of the climbs, even the ones that looked easiest. Af- ter that trip, I spent the next several years honing my climbing skills. Sometime around 2018, I met a young climber, Earl Lunceford, or EJ as he went by at the time. He was in- fectiously happy, friendly and was doggedly determined to climb hard and to latch on to anyone with experi-
ence that could help him on his way to becoming a climbing legend. We climbed together only a cou- ple of times in the following years but stayed in contact as he traveled around climbing more and more im- pressive lines in larger and larger mountain ranges. He climbed exten- sively with another local legend Fre- mont Shields. I told EJ and Fremont about Ber- nard Peak and how it had been my dream line. I had finally built my skillset to the point that making an attempt on one of these mighty ice lines was in the realm of possibility and not just a kamikaze mission. By late 2022, I had been climbing ice like a madman. I was having the best ice climbing season of my life and while I was physically a bit out of shape, my ice climbing skills were the best they had been. Around the middle of the season, and for the first time in almost three years, I set my eyes back on Bernard, and what I had coined The King Line. >> Sizing it up I scouted the climb using binoc- ulars. I could see there was ice, and lots of it. I quickly launched my drone and made the nerve-wracking flight
WINTER/SPRING 2025 21
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