[MCR] Rockies, Mt Cromwell, North Face, Robinson/Arbic

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

My fellow Mountain Guides, Steve Holeczi and Marc Piche', and I made  
a recreational (non-professional ... we weren't getting paid) ascent  
of the Robinson/Arbic route on the North Face of Mt Cromwell on  
Tuesday, October 19th.

4am saw us fording the half dozen braids of the Sunwapta River, none  
of which were deeper than top of the calf, but none of which were  
warm either!

Dawn caught us up on the glacier just below the Elzinga/Miller route  
having checked our location just once, with the GPS and map in the  
wee dark hours. Strangely a solo headlamp came up behind us to within  
a hundred meters while Steve and I bounced yodels off of the soaring  
mountain walls, but no reply, and then the headlamp went away.  
Anybody know the story? We'd love to hear it.

Able to see where we were, and where we were suppose to be, we  
traversed to the left to the initial "hidden gully" (Selectied Alpine  
Climbs by Dougherty). Fabulous climbing in that gully, one swing  
thunks into perfect plaster.

We climbed a left hand variation to the route above the hidden gully  
through the first rock band as the R/A looked serious in it's  
thinness. A big traverse back right took us back to the R/A for the  
second rock band. Lots of spindrift here as the day was partially  
overcast with light snowfall at times. Most of the harder climbing  
ends at the top of this rockband as the face leans back above (same  
level as the glacier starts on the Elzinga/Miller). And the climbing  
wasn't really that hard, never feeling harder than 5.6 mixed or WI 3 - 
but it isn't deep blue ice, it is mostly snow-ice (s'nice) that very  
occasionally takes stubby or short screws and is mostly protected by  
rock gear. Crampon front points seem to be the most important asset  
on the route.

The upper half of the wall is mostly steeper snow climbing with  
another big traverse right to turn the last rockband. Overall less  
ice, snice, or consolidated snow high on the face. Given the amount  
of snow climbing, any significant avalanche threat from unstable snow  
would strike this route off of the list.

We finished the route straight forwardly on the left hand edge of the  
cornices on the summit ridgeline. We topped out at 6:00 pm and headed  
straight down the descent gully into the Stutfield/Kitchener  
drainage. Convenient that you top out right on top of that gully.  
There are windslabs in the descent gully so we stuck to the sides and  
out of the  big stuff and, even given that, we did kick off a small . 
5 sized fresh pocket wind slab that sat at the feet of a small rock  
wall. We made two half rope rappels (15 meters each) in the lower  
gulley and walked onto the glacier at dusk.

9 pm we stopped and brewed up in the morraines. 11 pm we made it into  
the timber and bed down without sleeping bags to shiver til dawn.

Dawn saw us descending a faint trail down skier's left edge of the  
main drainage, then out the lower valley to the highway.

Note that the Elzinga/Miller had seen a one day ascent on Sunday and  
that we occasionally saw the previous party's footprints. They  
reported great conditions on that route.

Barry Blanchard, Mountain Guide
Steve Holeczi, Mountain Guide
Marc Piche', Mountain Guide

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