[MCR] Lake O'Hara conditions July 8th, 2014

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

Summer is coming on fast. Despite rain till almost 11pm sunday night we had excellent snow conditions on Cathedral mtn standard route in the monday am till around 11am. In the afternoon, it was a very different story-waterfalls and LOTS of small to BIG rocks pouring off the west faces of Huber and Hungabee and this barrage kept up till well into the evening. 

Only one observed down avalanche in the past couple of days but it was a big ugly one. Where the couloir between Ringrose pk and Glacier pk pinches down a big ugly slab pulled out right down to the glacier ice. I didn’t get a clear view of it due to fog but my wild guess is that it was triggered by rockfall from Ringrose.

Cathedral, Lefroy, Glacier, Huber would be great with an early start and fast movement. Wow betide you if you are hanging around in the daytime heat under anything steep and 1/2 snowy. Victoria SE ridge is still quite snowy and would require some solid snow skills and fast travel to keep it safe.  Hungabee and Biddle would be stupid and Odaray probably needs another couple of days of heat. The Tarrant/Morrison buttress on Odaray is coming along but again another week like the one in the forecast would do wonders for it.

Big moon and a fine forecast-it would be a grand time to spend a night up high to catch the early morning freeze!

Larry Stanier
ACMG Mountain Guide
laristan at telus.net