[MCR] Icefields Conditions

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

Myself and several other guides just finished teaching a course at the Columbia Icefields.  We climbed Boundary Peak and A2 on Wednesday, and Athabasca via AA col on Thursday.  The weather was a mixed bag starting with heavy rain and snow in valley bottom on Tuesday afternoon and overnight.  No significant precip fell Wed, or Thurs, and skies were mostly clear.  There was significant wind mostly out of the SW during the entire period, with gusts into the strong range.  Temps overnight were between -1 and +1 the few nights we were there at valley bottom.  In the high alpine, temps were -5 at coldest during days (plus significant wind chill).  We encountered between 20-40cm of recent snow overlying either rock or summer snow/ ice above about 2300M, below this, the snow tapered away.  Of course with all the wind action, there were spots scoured to ground, and pillows up to 80cm or more in lee or loaded features.  The bond between this fall's snowpack and bare ice, or summer snow, appeared variable, but generally bonding well.  (Test results in the upper end of moderate to very hard).  Of significant concern were windslabs on the surface, which although not widespread, were present in many wind and spindrift loaded features. 
We did trigger a size 1 slab avalanche while ascending the most conservative bottom features of the AA col en route to Mt Athabasca on Thursday AM.  This was in a small spindrift loaded pocket that was around 40 degrees, about 8 meters wide, 15m long, and between 5-30cm deep.  The debris wasnt deep enough to burry someone, but certainly could have carried someone over a cliff, into a crevasse,etc had there been something like that in the runout.  We purposely chose this feature, as it was small, and not committing (ie safe runout) to access the main slopes which had been scoured to rock and scree.  (the guide that triggered it was unroped as it was not required, and took a small 20 m ride before standing up out of the moving debris).
We noticed a size 1.5 slab avalanche below the icefall to the climbers left of the Silverhorn route (likely icefall triggered), and lots of spindrift and sluffing in steep gullies on both Athabasca and Andromeda.  There is lots of ice starting to form in the regular early season spots.  Glacier travel was generally boot top penetration with the odd section to knee deep, and lots of small crevasses getting thinly covered by recent snow and wind.  Definately required carefull rope use, probing and route selection to avoid trouble.  Also of note were a few large cornices left from last winter still hanging in.  Specifically noted were some over the "Practice Gullies", and the A Strain on Andromeda.  
Overall, a couple nice blue days, but challenging conditions between glacier travel and avoiding potetially problematic slopes from an avalanche hazard standpoint.  Hard to reccomend any gully/ coulouir type terrain due to potential for small but nasty wind/ spindrift slabs, or any large committing slopes where loading has occured.  Certainly the Ramp route up Athabasca looked loaded and "plump".
With the precipitation that is forecast, (its raining heavy in Revelstoke), the conditions are likely not getting any easier!

Cheers
Jeff Honig
Mountain Guide
www.alpineaddictions.com
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