[MCR] Waddington conditions

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

	Just came out from a quick one week trip to the South side of  
Waddington to the Dias Glacier area. Other than the ski quality the  
area around the regular base-camp on the Dias is in good shape.
	
	From the limited probing that I did on the Franklin, Finality and  
Angel glacier there is well over 3m  in the area. Having said this  
though, there is widespread evidence of an extreme wind event in the  
past few weeks which has stripped much snow off ridge tops and made  
snow conditions on north faces, bullet proof!

	We managed to be in the area right when most snow surfaces were going  
though its first transition into a spring snow cycle. This meant that  
we used ski crampons on almost all of our travel however the snow  
never really turned into a skiable form of corn snow due to the powder  
like conditions underneath. On most days this meant we were rewarded  
with a beautiful breakable crust or schmoo for skiing.

	We did mange to bag the false summit of the NW peak of Waddington in  
our short stay. In my 15 years of skiing in the area I have never seen  
the Angle glacier in such difficult conditions. The Seracs have become  
very active and personally are almost a bit much for a ski route. The  
attached photo is from our flight into the area on the evening of the  
14th, however when we climbed up there two days later there had been a  
serac fall from high on the glacier in the center. This large icefall  
did not cause any real avalanche, but it did leave a 2-3m deep trench  
down the entire glacier and left debris field 30-40m wide.

	Also of note the NW summit of Waddington was also in difficult  
conditions with mostly blue ice and two near vertical steps just below  
the summit. Defiantly not skiable as it usually is at this time of the  
year. Ski and boot crampons were a must for our whole route up from  
the Dias as would be a few more ice screws and a real ice axe and  
crampons for the NW summit.

	With a forecast of warming temps and poor weather we headed out a few  
days earlier than planed. I'd bet with the warm temps there would be  
bit of an avalanche cycle going right now until the temps cooled off  
again.


Craig McGee, Mountain guide.
Whistler BC
craigskibum at yahoo.com