20 Questions
Describe your climbing background:
Grew up in a climbing family—both mother and father climbed extensively in the French Alps in the late 50s and early 60s. My father, Roger Marshall, was my greatest influence. He became a very high level Himalayan climber mainly focusing on fast, solo ascents of the big ones. Eventually this took his life in 1987 on a fall while descending the North Face of Everest. For the last 20 years, I have made a living out guiding in the Canadian Mountains along with my wife Abby Watkins.

Why climb ice?
I started climbing ice with my father when I was 15. I haven’t focused on it the whole time since then, but I’ve always been drawn to ice climbing more than any other sort of climbing. Also for some strange reason, it ended up being my forte. The most interesting part of ice to me is the constant change day to day and from year to year—forever changing, forever inspiring and luring. It is also very improbable at times and requires a high level of confidence and analysis.

Describe a climbing experience when things got out of hand:
A couple of years ago, putting up a new route in the Canadian Rockies, I got past the point of no return on a mixed alpine line. Ended up pulling through some fairly hard mixed moves on marginal pro to gain a very thin smear of steep ice. The ice was thinner than anticipated, but was visually more inspiring ahead. What unfolded was an incredibly challenging cerebral game that lasted for approximately 30 minutes. No retreating possibilities, just 30 minutes of run-out, two-centimeter thick bubble crap ending in stubbies and a manky anchor that left me stoked by the mind-game challenge.

Who or what inspires you?
My father inspired me the most in the earlier stages of my climbing career. Today, it’s all the other Canadians that are pushing the winter climbing world.

How does fear affect your climbing?
Funny enough, for myself, fear is much more of a reality on nice sunny rock than it is on ice and mixed. A strange thing, but I’m happy soloing grade 6 ice, when the conditions are available that is, and I’ll usually only solo up to 5.8 in the alpine rock environment.

Care to comment on: heel spurs, leashes vs. leashless, falling on ice, impact of drytooling?
Sure, I’m all for leashless climbing, especially for hard ice, it makes it a totally different world, much less like aid climbing. I’ve never had a fall on an ice screw, except in more competition-type situations or more sport ice climbing, like when the screw protection is in an ice roof and the fall is into clean air. So…guess I’m not for falling on ice. More focused on finesse climbing that is controlled and well thought out in cruxy sections or on poor, unprotectable ice. I’m not a fan of heel spurs, never wear them climbing in the real world. I do, however, use them in competitions, which is generally a contrived environment. So, just for competition, for now, but I seem to injure myself more with them. Also the comp rules are getting much more realistic in regards to their use. In the end it’s all about your own personal ethics, isn’t it? Dry tooling has become like sport climbing to the winter climbing world. But I’ve also seen more injuries and maiming since this part of the sport took off. As long as it stays on its own crags, I’m all for it, however I’m starting to get concerned with the visible environmental impact, like the scratches from crampons and tools, along with all the bolts—best if it takes place in low impact areas.

Any near death experiences?
Just one worth mentioning. At the age of 19, I rapped off the end of my ropes in the failing light, fell 15 feet onto 20° ice then picked up speed and shot over a 50’ waterfall with a blood-curdling scream. I launched head first trying to grab the rock walls on the way by because my axes were holstered. Anyway, I did a slow-turning forward summersault, not sure if this was instinct or pure stupid luck. Fifty feet below, I landed on my feet, slightly tilted backwards, crampons slamming into the ice and fell backwards crashing into a wall only breaking my arm, though quite badly. My old man was super pissed when I told him how it happened, “always tie knots in the end of your ropes, especially if you can’t see the ground you twit,” he bellowed at me.

What are your future plans or goals in climbing?
My plans for the close future, or my dream plan, if I find the right conditions, is to find some ultra-classic mixed lines in big mountain terrain, in a couple of the great mountain ranges of the world. Other than that, continue to climb at a high level in the ice and mixed world. Put up the occasional odd worthwhile route locally and show people a great way of life through my guiding.