[MCR] Freshfield Icefield, Rockies, April 1st-8th, 2014

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

I spent the last seven days in the Freshfield Icefield/ Mummery glacier
area with a couple friends. We camped at 2650m NE of the Helmer/ Gilgit col
and skiied between 3200 and 2200m. Here is what we found:

*Weather:*
It started off cold, clear and calm on April 1st followed by mixed
convective clouds on the 3rd and 4th. A storm on the 5th and 6th dropped
60-100 cm of snow with moderate west winds at ridgetop. A weak ridge of
high pressure moved in on the 7th and 8th which brought strong to extreme
west/ northwest winds and caused widespread wind effect in the alpine.
Temperatures at camp (2650m) gradually warmed from -20 on the night of the
1st to 0 on the morning of the 8th.

*Avalanche activity:*
On the flight in we noticed several fresh slabs to size 2.5 on S-W aspects
in thin snowpack terrain. We also saw evidence of an older cycle on polar
aspects that had come out during the last storm primarily out of steep
terrain and with cornice triggers. Compression and deep tap tests indicated
hard sudden planar results down 120cm at the previous storm interface (mid
March). When the winds picked up towards the end of the week, we saw
several cornice failures/ serac falls triggering fresh windslabs up to 40cm
deep.

*Glacier conditions*:
Snowpack on the ice was well over 3.5m in all areas probed except for thin/
scoured areas (ridges) where we probed 2.5m. Lots of large open crevasses
and bergschrunds on these glaciers. The upper snowpack was fairly
unconsolidated (you had to go down 1.5-2m before getting into denser snow),
which had us wary of weak, recently bridged crevasses.

*Ski quality:*
Excellent at the beginning of the week deteriorating as the winds/ warm
temperatures came in towards the end of the week. We were mostly limited by
poor visibility as there are few rocks for reference and all the terrain
had some sort of crevasse hazard to negotiate, which was difficult in poor
light.

A beautiful area with lots of ski mountaineering objectives and steep ski
lines. If you're planning a trip into this area soon and want more info,
feel free to contact me.

Ian Jackson
ACMG Mountain Guide
iantomasjackson at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/mcr/attachments/20140408/6d90a274/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Helmer (800x600).jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 190250 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/mcr/attachments/20140408/6d90a274/attachment-0002.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Mumery Glacier (800x600).jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 204224 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/mcr/attachments/20140408/6d90a274/attachment-0003.jpg>