[MCR] Rocies, Bow to Yoho traverse

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

I guided a ski traverse from the Bow Hut to the Stanley Mitchell Hut and out the Yoho Valley from March 24th to 29th.

March 24th: great travel into Bow Hut. Only a couple of pools or water open in the canyon creek, then, and little solar sloughing from the skier's left hand wall in the canyon, I suspect that has changed with the warmth of yesteday.

March 25th: Great travel across the Wapta on a wind pressed surface to Mt Collie. We gained the basin below Collie via the climber's right hand side of the icefall (close the rightmost open crevasse in the photo below). I judged these slopes to be less steep than the left hand of the icefall. We skied down to the proposed site of the Alpine Club of Canada's new hut as per the new guidebook -Summits and Icefields 1 (basically the col between Yoho Peak and the long southwest ridge of Mt Collie). Getting to the proposed location was straight forward, exiting from it down onto the Glacier des Poilus involved a bit of thinking. We cut a steep south facing slope above a wind moat (first moist snow of our tour) -there may be other options that would be found given a hut there (two pictures of our exit below). We descended onto the Glacier des Poilus via westsouthwest facing snow patches and a rib from the above described col. This descent felt far less serious than the traditional descent via the large southwest facing slope at the head of the Glacier des Poilus.

We camped out on an a lake locked ice berg at the end of the Glacier des Polius. The consensus of our group was that the ACC should build the hut.

March 26th: We traversed towards Isolated Col and I stuck my nose right into it's lower slopes where my heart rate ramped up and I decided that turning the Whaleback would be a better option. A one day old size 2 slab out of the Whaleback's east ridge line made me feel better about giving Isolated Col a miss (moderate westerly ridge top winds on the 25th was the trigger, I suspect). Our first of three nights in the Stanley Mitchell Hut.

March 27th: We had some fine skiing in flat light on the north side of President Pass. We skied from the last benches below the bergshrund as the visibility was poor and I didn't feel good about climbing up the steeper slopes into the pass. My team solved the problem of the clogged outhouse with lots of hot water and a long stick. Good problem solvers, my crew.

March 28th: More fine skiing on the Mt McArthur/Isolated Peak glacier. Better visibility, but we still skied from below the bergschrund because of  McArthur having it's head in a cloud all day.

March 29th: We skied down to the Yoho Valley and out to the cars, lots of kicking and gliding with a wee bit of skinning on the biggest uphill.

Happy trails,

Barry Blanchard
Mountain Guide
www.barryblanchard.ca
www.yamnuska.com



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Yoho Glacier to the southwest basin of Mt Collie

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Wind moat at new hut location

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Cutting the steep south slope above the above wind moat (I backed out of the upper slope and descended to where it was less steep).