Banff photographer’s glacier shot wins ‘Outdoor Adventure Photo of the Year’

Will Lambert captures Simon Ennals rappelling into an ice cave on the Dome Glacier in Jasper National Park. The image won Canadian Geographic's Outdoor Adventure Photo of the Year. (Will Lambert)

Somewhere on the Dome Glacier in Jasper National Park, Banff photographer Will Lambert rappels into the frozen cavities of an ice cave.

Polished walls of blue rising up around him, he points his camera upwards where the glacial giants make way to a slice of overcast sky. With climber Simon Ennals in the frame and a flick of the rope, Lambert takes the shot.

Turns out it was the shot, the one that would earn the mountain life photographer the title of Canadian Geographic’s Outdoor Adventure Photo of the Year.

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“(Will) is a very adventurous guy who goes to some pretty unusual locations in the backcountry that we don’t often see. It’s views of our national parks that are not super familiar to us as editors or to our readership,” said Alexandra Pope, Canadian Geographic’s editor-in-chief.

Selected from more than 7,000 entries, Lambert’s glacial image had all the ingredients Canadian Geographic judges were on the lookout for in the annual Canadian Photos of the Year competition that recognizes outstanding images from across the country.

“This particular image ... it’s an unusual angle, looking up at the climber from the bottom of this ice cave. There’s a lovely sense of motion with ... the slack in the rope coming down towards the photographer and just a really eye-catching blend of colours,” said Pope.

With a focus on mountain life and outdoor adventure photography, Lambert has been submitting photos to the contest since 2020.

“It was definitely a shock,” said Lambert, who also came runner-up for his photo in the “Weather, Seasons and Skies” category in 2021. “When you kind of look and browse and see the level of entries that have gone in [to the competition] there’s some extremely talented people out there.”

Teaming up with fellow Banff photographers Ennals and Renaud Cheyrou, the winning photo started with a mission deep into the Columbia Icefields to revisit a glacial arch that Lambert had shot months earlier.

Discovering that the arch had since collapsed, Lambert and the team stumbled upon a new feature in the iced over terrain.

“The rising temperatures and big changes that we are seeing to our weather patterns here, those glaciers are changing pretty rapidly,” he said. “So, it means that we are forever getting different features kind of opening up or changing.”

Doing an initial recon to look for access points and assess the stability around this new opening in the ice, Lambert saw potential.

“There was some form of opening there at the toe of the glacier, but not enough to be able to, I think, explore safely in my risk tolerance,” he said, noting each member of the group has extensive mountaineering training.

Returning in November 2025, what was once a small opening during the group’s initial trek in April was now a full-on ice cave, Lambert recalled.

“We went inside first, had a little look from the inside and decided that it was a very cool feature,” he said “[I] had that vision for the shot of rappelling down, but needed to have a look at the ice quality from the top to see whether we could set anchors.”

Careful not to linger long in spots of the cave that appeared unstable, the crew searched until they found ice strong enough to build an anchor.

Descending into the cave first, Lambert positioned himself down below, capturing Ennals on the rope above him.

“In the photo there’s like a kink in the rope, and that’s just kind of drawing the eye into the frame and giving a sense of movement and motion that conveys to the viewer what was happening in the moment,” he said.

Playing with different angles and compositions, Lambert found his winning shot in the mix.

“The image that ended up winning, I myself kind of titled it, ‘The Bird Cave’ because when you look at the opening of it, it looks like a silhouette of a bird.”

Managing risk behind the lens

Often shooting in landscapes and conditions that are unforgiving, Lambert has his priorities straight when he’s out in the field.

“When you’re going out and shooting any kind of photography, the main thing is that you go out, you have a great day with your friends in the mountains and you all come home safe,” said Lambert, who has spent over a decade behind the lens. “That is the baseline of what you would hope to achieve. If you get anything else, if you get one image that’s a potential keeper, it’s a bonus.”

With years of mountaineering experience and both cave and avalanche rescue courses under his belt, Lambert is careful to assess when a photographic mission is within his “wheelhouse.”

“There’s a lot of discussion over these caves as far as public access goes and if people should or shouldn’t do it and we have a lot of training and experience to go out there and we are still relatively conservative, but there’s definitely people that are leading groups out there … that definitely shouldn’t be,” he said.

Knowing that there are always elements outside of his control in the backcountry, Lambert says planning, preparation and collaboration were key to lining up his winning shot.

“This one just happened to be quite lucky and lined up to actually get some pretty good images out of it,” said Lambert, referring to the conditions on the glacier that day.

“The more you go out, the safer you can make those calls and hopefully the more experience you get to be able to come home with an image. It just might not always be what you envisaged,” he added.

Lambert’s photo will be published in Canadian Geographic’s March/April edition alongside other winning images, runners-up and honourable mentions across categories of “Flora, Fauna and Fungi,” “Epic Landscapes” and “Weather, Seasons and Skies.”

The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada. This position covers Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda First Nation and Kananaskis Country.