[MCR] Bugaboos & Mount Fay / Neil Colgan Hut

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

Hey all,

We've spent the last couple weeks guiding in both the Bugaboos and Lake
Louise area. Here's a few quick obs from our trips.

(The following is now about a week old) The heat wave, and mostly stable
weather from last week made for great climbing in the Bugs, but combined
with a night of heavy rain had noticeably reduced the amount of snow
coverage up there. In general travel was quite good, with only the warmest
afternoons making for punchy travel conditions on the glaciers. The
Bugaboo-Snowpatch Col, when we arrived, was in about as good as it gets
type shape. Even after this past weeks heat it was still continuous snow
bottom to top, but thinning quickly just below the col. The upper
bergschrund is starting to open more and more by the day, though still no
problem to sneak around at this point.

We climbed a number of routes in the 7 days we guided there. All dry and in
good shape. For those who might be planning to climb it, we replaced or
bulked up many of the existing rap stations as we came down the Buckingham
Route, hopefully those will last a while yet.

In Lake Louise this weekend we guided 3 days from the Neil Colgan Hut in
mostly lousy weather. We woke early (4am) on the 20th to a blizzard and
sideways freezing drizzle type weather outside and just decided to go back
to bed. The storm had cleared by 8am or so and we thought we'd still take a
run at Mount Fay despite the late start. The bergschrund below the access
to the west ridge seemed weaker than usual for this time of year, but still
relatively easy to get across. We crossed it below the ice face farthest to
the climbers right. The 2 pitches below the ridge were good step kicking
(in snow), while the pitch immediately after the schrund' was down to bare
ice. By the time we hit the ridge the sun had burnt off the early morning
coating of ice and verglass and we had dry conditions to the top of the
rock. Supportive travel from the top of the West Ridge to the summit and
back.

Yesterday at 8am, there was a fresh 5cms on the deck of the Neil Colgan Hut
as we left to descend back to valley bottom. Can't imagine it will last
long in this heat though. We gave Mount Little a miss as a result.

Athabasca, Castle Mountain, Abbott Pass and another week in the Bugaboos in
the next week and a bit for us, we'll have some more beta for you all when
we're back :)

Have fun out there!

Guides:
Mike Trehearne
Kyle Chartrand

Cloud Nine Guides
www.cloudnineguides.com/alpinecourse
www.facebook.com/cloudnineguides.com

 <http://www.cloudnineguides.com>
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