People have gone down the Niagara Falls, which is already nuts, but Red Bull says that ice climber Will Gadd is the first person crazy enough to go up the falls. As in he climbed a damn waterfall. The Niagara Falls was frozen over but Gadd gets impossibly close to the falls and somehow makes it to the top.
Gadd climbed the Falls without any bolts so that there’s nothing left in the ice that wasn’t there before the climb. Also, this stunt can only be done during a cold winter, if the winter was warm, climbable ice would never form. Red Bull explains how difficult this feat was:
It’s not easy ice, either. “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.” Will estimates the grade at WI6+, as hard as it gets for this style of climbing. Tools he used include ice axes, crampons, and a specially-designed Black Diamond prototype “ice hook.”
Picture: Christian Pondella/Red Bull Content Pool