Not many people will delay a call because their phone took a likely perilous flight 100 metres down a frozen waterfall in the darkness of a late winter afternoon.
But for Brandon Pullan, that’s life.
“I took it out to do a little video and I dropped it,” Pullan says, describing his latest adventure on Cascade Falls in Banff National Park, “and it was gone.
“I’ve gone through enough phone droppings to know it's gone and if it's not gone, it’s probably damaged beyond repair.”
For many, the pursuit of adventure in the mountains and cliffs begins as a weekend hobby or a distant dream. For Pullan, a seasoned climbing guide and adventurer, it was a calling that started early and took him on a journey from small-town Ontario to the towering peaks of the Rockies — and beyond.
Growing up in Newmarket, Pullan never envisioned that climbing would become his life's work, he explained during a rescheduled call after replacing his now long-gone phone. But after discovering the sport as a teenager through a girlfriend who took him to Newmarket’s Of Rock and Chalk, he was hooked. Within a couple of weeks he was working there while attending Sacred Heart Catholic High School.
There, he was able to develop his skills and connect with seasoned climbers who took him climbing across central Ontario.
He recalls at age 18 meeting Sonnie Trotter as the professional Canadian climber who contributed to hundreds of first free ascents around the world travelled across the country.
"In the '90s, if you were going to find the sport, it was just kind of by luck," Pullan reflects. "There weren't many gyms, so you had to connect with the right people.
“I got the itch to climb more."
By the end of that decade, it was time for university and Pullan set out for Lakehead in Thunder Bay, known for its outdoor recreation and adventure sports. There he found an active climbing community attached to the Alpine Club of Canada and he soon found company in experienced climbers wit access to something like 2,000 rock and ice climbs within a two-hour drive.
After four years, with a geography degree in his pocket, Pullan packed up his truck and headed west. His first job was working for a contractor in Canmore, Alberta. And then he put his education to work, taking a job in GIS (geographic information system) in Calgary.
“I realized pretty quickly I didn’t want to be in an office,” he recalls.
Instead he shuffled work for a stone mason, painting and commuting 10 hours between Canmore and Squamish, B.C. working as a guide.
By this time, he had discovered writing. While going to university he realized Thunder Bay’s vast climbing community had been overlooked, never having appeared on the pages of climbing magazines and he set out to change that. He wrote his first piece for Gripped, Canada’s Climbing Magazine and was soon writing a regular column about Canadian climbing.
The regular adventures in climbing lend themselves naturally to storytelling, which are often crazy stories, he says, pointing to an exhaustive list of books that have been written, and consumed, about the sport.
Pullan’s writing credits include contributions to Climbing, Rock and Ice and Alpinist, as well as Gripped magazines. He also penned two books about climbing, The Bold and Cold: A History of 25 Classic Climbs in the Canadian Rockies in 2016 and To Be a Warrior: The Adventurous Life and Mysterious Death of Billy Davidson in 2021.
For the past decade he’s been serving as editor-in-chief of Gripped, a role that allows him to merge his passion for climbing with his love for storytelling. He works remotely from his home in Canmore and his flexible schedule allows him to climb just about anywhere, providing he has access to his laptop and internet service within a day or two.
His focus is more on technical climbs, versus altitude climbing, so the Himalayas aren’t on his bucket list, but conquering the north face of Switzerland’s Eiger certainly is, providing he has the right partner for the short season the climb is available.
But not far from home is Cascade Falls, a handy after-work destination easily accessed with boots outfitted with crampon points, ropes, ice screws and headlamps. Phones, of course, are optional.
