[MCR] Rockies: Bow Hut - Onion and Mount Gordon - Feb 14, 15, 2016

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

Intended to go up to Bow Hut on February 13 but was greeted in Parking lot
by Parks Visitor Safety doing a rescue for some folks who triggered the
slope near the final approach up to the hut on Friday afternoon. Parks at
the time suggested against doing the approach so we did crevasse rescue
practice instead.

After talking to one of the VS specialists that evening I decided to head up
the next day and play the super conservative game. We approached all of the
terrain for the two days as if it was very touchy. Turns out it was. (See
last paragraph)

Feb14 ­ Bow Hut approach / ascent of Onion
Lots of open water in canyon. There was about 10cm more low density snow on
the facets than 2 weeks ago. Above the canyon the wind began in earnest.
Across the flats after the trees we had a lot of whumpfing and cracking. The
final slope to the hut was treated with suspicion since the debris from
Friday¹s avalanche incident is about 20 - 25 m past where the normal up
track goes. See attached photo if you are curious about where the avalanche
took place. The crown in the leftmost slide actually extends well above the
photo. We could not see where the actual burial was due to poor light.

That afternoon we ascended the Onion in strong winds. Snowing about 1cm per
hour. Wind slabs forming. It felt like the kind of wind that results in
significant cornice growth. Sastrugi more pronounced the higher up we got.
Height of snow on the slopes between Bow Hut and Onion ranged between 220cm
and 320plus cm. Ski quality ranged from poor up high to fair lower down.

Feb 15 ­ Ascent of Mt Gordon and descent to road
Light snow and moderate to strong winds all night long. New windslab
reacting easily to hand shears down 20 ­ 30cm in the storm snow on lee
slopes. Managed to ascend Gordon in moderate to strong winds all day. A LOT
of open crevasses between the Onion and Gordon. I have never seen it like
this in 30 years on the Wapta. We roped up on the way up and put the rope
back on for the flats after the initial descent of Gordon. Probing the
glacier near the crevasses we had snow depth ranging from 200cm to 80cm...
Not instilling confidence for travelling near these big slots without the
rope!

Skiing up high on Gordon was fair to poor on descent. Height of snow on the
upper slopes was typically 300cm plus. Descending final slopes to hut was
poor ski quality on sastrugi in the upper reaches. When we got down lower in
the slight lee of the recent west winds ski quality improved from fair to
good.

On the way out we encountered another recent Size 2.5 natural avalanche
event that hit the approach trail some time on the night of Feb 14 or
morning of Feb 15. I am pleased to say that it did not hit our conservative
up-track that was in the trees on the climbers right hand side. The debris
nuked the normal path that winds it¹s way up and down under the slide path.
I will post pictures of this slide on the new MCR website at
http://www.mountainconditions.com

Cyril Shokoples MG
ACC Calgary Ski-Mo Crew

Photo courtesy Craig Shelley
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