[MCR] Rockies, Lake O'Hara conditions and Tarrant/Morrison buttres rockfall.

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

Fine day in the hills today. Climbed Victoria via the Huber Glacier. Still some breakable crust on a lot of the Huber glacier and the gully up to the ridge but it got warm today so it should be more supportive tomorrow. Soft, dry snow only in very steep shady north pockets. Ridge is snowy and therefore somewhat challenging. Huber NW face looked good.

Lefroy still looks terrible, thin snow over old ice and rock. Hungabee and Biddle also are in poor shape and probably out for the season as rock routes. Everything below 2800m is in good shape and dry.

Notable event-Saturday afternoon around 3 pm a natural rockfall occurred on the NE face of Mt Odaray. It appears to have started about 2/3 of the way up the Tarrant/Morrison buttress on Mt. Odaray, just above where the quartzite ends and just west of where you get on a decent limestone rib for awhile. The rockfall was heard from all over the valley and produced a sizeable dust cloud. It appears to have ravaged the lower quartzite pitches. I haven't had a close look at it but I am pretty certain it would be a REALLY bad idea to try and climb that route this fall. Rocks continued to fall at intervals later that day and there will certainly be lots of dust and debris on all those ledges and lots of damaged rock just waiting to fall from the fracture. 

Larry Stanier
ACMG Mountain Guide
laristan at telus.net