Read the full report with action photos on Climbing.com

After a three-season effort, a team of Canadians has completed a major new mixed route in Alberta with a long crux pitch that could be as hard as M12.

Will Meinen and Brandon Pullan spent several days over two seasons working on The Jimmy Skid Rig (300m, WI5 M12) before recruiting Will Gadd this year for the final efforts to free-climb the route. 

The route is approached by a “slot-canyon adventure course” that took two to five hours depending on snow conditions. Meinen and Pullan discovered tattered ropes hanging from the wall from a previous attempt, but started their line several hundred yards to the right on a discontinuous vein of ice. Several pitches of mixed ice and rock climbing gained an overhanging wall with two long pitches that diagonaled to the left to reach a steep ice curtain. 

Read the full report by Dougald MacDonald on Climbing.com

Additional Sources Will Meinen, Will Gadd, Blog.Mountainhardwear.com, Gravsports.blogspot.com