Up in the Canadian Rockies, yeah, that frozen, wind-blasted spine of the North where the air hurts your face, Raphael Slawinski is back to doing what winter wizards do: summoning new lines out of sheer spite and subzero misery. The professor, the crusher, the three-decade route-smith with a PhD in “Nope, this is definitely a bad idea,” just slapped two more savage climbs onto his already ridiculous résumé.

And in classic Slawinski style, these aren’t your wholesome, sunrise-with-a-thermos kinda sends.

These are jet-black coffee, life-questioning, full-value sufferfests, the kind where you’re screaming into the wind, negotiating with whatever god you believe in, and then bragging about it forever once the blood finally crawls back into your fingertips.

And the most punk part?

Slawinski’s not even on social media.
Dude drops grade-A alpine “f— yous” into the mountains and walks away.
 Everything you hear is secondhand, from partners or friends of partners, like whispered rumors of a ghost who only appears when the temperatures are bad enough to kill you.

PLAN F (M4+, 40m): A LITTLE LOVE LETTER TO SUFFERING

Across from the Stanley Headwall, where gravity feels heavier and the air somehow colder, Slawinski teamed up with Gavin McNamara for the first ascent of Plan F, a 40-metre splash of thin ice, scrappy rock, and head-tilting route-finding.

Think: precarious smears, daggers hanging like frozen guillotines, and an ice curtain you swat at like a fly because that’s the only way across. It’s not the sort of outing you recommend to your friends unless those friends regularly triple-scoop your line at the gear shop or show up with a rack that looks like they packed it in the dark.

A good day out? Absolutely. A sensible one? If you like big walks, yes.

REAL SMALL DRIP (M9+ WI3+, 185m): SMALL NAME, BIG ATTITUDE

If Plan F is a shot of espresso, Real Small Drip, Slawinski’s three-season odyssey with Greg Barrett in the Ghost, is a triple-shot nitro with a side of broken glass.

For decades, climbers have eyed this wall while questing up the famous Real Big Drip, wondering about that bizarre, dark, overhanging channel off to the side. Turns out it goes, barely. Over 185 metres of roofs, corners, ice, and what can only be called “mixed climbing with consequences.”

This is a niche-within-a-niche line for those who love overhanging bolts and sketchy trad—like the climbing equivalent of surfing both slab waves and heaving point breaks in the same session. 

THE HARD WAY

The first ascent took three seasons of coming back, fixing little problems, re-sending the bottom pitches, and slowly unlocking sequences through stacked roofs. Where the holds were too thin, they tapped them in with an ice tool, old-school, not power-tool chisel work. And they’re clear: When the holds break (and they will), follow the same ethic.

THE LINE 

The climbing itself reads like this (more like it at  Frozen Limestone):

P1 (D5+, 30m): Loose corner, gear and bolts. A warm-up that doesn’t warm you up.
P2 (D5+, 25m): Corners, rails, traverses—like paddling through shifting rips to reach the real break.
P3 (D9+, 25m): The business. Roofs stacked on roofs, techy and steep, with a bolt line like a dotted map to salvation.
P4 (D7+, 45m): Exposed, pumpy, a crux that hits harder than a closeout. Bring the whole rack. Seriously.
P5 (WI3+ M4, 60m): Choose your drip: left or right. Both icy, moody, and changing by the day.

THE TAKEAWAY: SLAWINSKI STILL SLAYS

Slawinski has never been about easy wins, and these two lines keep that streak alive. Plan F is a spicy little one-pitch brain freeze. Real Small Drip is an all-day, all-body, all-psyche winter epic, one that will rightly attract the few souls who see a terrifying overhanging corner and think, Yeah, that looks fun.

For the rest of us? It’s another reminder that in the Rockies’ winter surf, Raphael Slawinski is still paddling out deeper than anyone.

From 1996 by Slawinski: "Me doing my best Alex Lowe imitation (you kids remember Prophet on a Stick?) on the broken off Killer Pillar. For the record, I didn’t make it up."