[MCR] Purcell Mountains - NE Ridge Bugaboo Spire

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

Hi Folks


Climbed the NE ridge on Bugaboo on Tuesday July 20. Ran into snow and ice on
the upper pitches making things more difficult than anticipated on the
easier pitches. Bypassed one section via a difficult 5.8/5.9 crack as some
of the easy 4th class climbing was covered in verglas.

Used crampons on the way up as we had a pretty good freeze.

Two young hard core dudes from Salt Lake ran up the thing in excellent time
the same day taking many of the harder variations (5.8/5.9) which avoid the
snow. I would wait a bit before doing the route if you want it to be more
'normal' as opposed to quite a bit more challenging.

On the descent down the Kain I rappelled a couple of additional times
compared to normal due to snow / ice. No problem really but just ate up some
more time. We chose to downclimb the snow from the Bugaboo / Snowpatch col
where two parties coming off the Kain route behind us chose to rappel.
Either way goes if you are competent on steeper snow. We put our crampons on
for the descent which was helpful in our case.

Cyril Shokoples MG
Rescue Dynamics
http://www.rescuedynamics.ca
http://www.rescuedynamics.com