Anglika Rainer - my upside down world

Climbing, more precisely Mixedclimbing in Canada, had been on my Adventurelist for some time. Canada is very popular for iceclimbing but as I read in some articles, also the Mixed should be great and in the so called „Cineplex cave“ there are located two routes that have been the first M12 and M13 in the world. As it can be considered a historic place for this disciplin of climbing I aboslutely wanted to see it and climb there. So after long autumn months spent in hard training, the 7th of December me and my boyfriend Marco left for Calgary with final destination Lake Louise, Alberta. We had a „warm“ welcome by what I had already seen in the weather forecast - for me polar feeling -30 degrees Cesius. So the first day we decided togehter with our Canadian friends to visit a slighly warmer place, the Haffner cave. Here I could flash nevertheless the horrible -27°, that made my hands froze in the thin gloves you need for hard climbing, the famous routes „The caveman“ and "Fire Roasted JC’s Rig", both M10.The second day we went to Cineplex and looking at the routes I decided that I wanted to try "Steel Koan", M13+, the hardest one in the cave and in whole Canada. The route already starts very steeply and after a few meters it represents two very long moves, one of these on a tiny hold that likely lets your iceaxes slip off. After these there are 10 meters of a completely horizontal roof and then finishes on the ice. The last day that we could spend at Cineplex, finally the temperature rose on moderate -10° and I gave all my concentration, determination and power and sent the route. I feel really happy about this achievemente, this is the hardest Mixedclimb I could do until now and I did it trying for only 3 days and with quite harsh conditions and additionally I did also the first female ascent of this great route.After this we immediately jumped on our car, driving South for 12 hours, to the Open American Championship in Bozeman, Montana. For me this was the first competition of the year and so a good preparation for the Worldcup circuit that starts in January. I had a lot of fun in this well organized comp and climbing in the finals with the cheering crowd below me, then climbing to top and winning was great.