From mcr at informalex.org Mon Aug 3 17:37:38 2009 From: mcr at informalex.org (Public Mountain Conditions Report) Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:37:38 -0600 Subject: [MCR] Edith Cavell and Cavell road Message-ID: <20090803213740.B556F12B0FF@sparta.incentre.net> Climbed east ridge of Cavell 2 days ago in perfect conditions. Used axes for 5 minutes low down on the left morraine trail. this could probably be avoided but it was still dark and hard to see the trail from below. The rest of the route was dry. there is water (presently) just above the col where the scrambly trail starts...should last a while yet. One other spot on the ridge we turned on the left crossed a patch of snow then regained the ridge. Most of the pitched belays were within an arm length of a snow patch to grab a handful of snow! The backside is bone dry. There is some water lower down on the decent where the trail comes close to a stream. It was very busy on the route on Saturday with 10-15 parties. On another note just in case you did not know, the Cavell road will be tentatively closed as of September 7th this fall. They are re-paving the road and doing prep work. If you have plans for a September climb on Cavell or are planning a trip to the Tonquin, you will have to go in via Portal Creek. Essentially the route on Cavell is good till September 6...unless of course these perfect conditions change before then! Of course this could change due to scheduling and such, so contact Parks Canada in Jasper if you have any questions or to check for last minute changes in early September. Peter Amann Peter Amann Mountain Guide pamann at incentre.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mcr at informalex.org Mon Aug 3 19:22:30 2009 From: mcr at informalex.org (Public Mountain Conditions Report) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 17:22:30 -0600 Subject: [MCR] Mt. Victoria Message-ID: <001201ca1491$4629abf0$d27d03d0$@net> Climbed Mt. Victoria via Huber Ledges and down to Abbot Pass today. Route is in good shape. Temps at O'hara at 5:30 this morning was +11. No freeze on the snow of the Huber Glacier. Travel on the initial part of the glacier was good. After the rock step, foot penetration was knee to hip deep. Crevasse bridges there are weak. On the plateau, snow was firm. The schrund is easy to get across with snow up to the first rock band. Above that, the usual gully is dirty ice and gravel. We avoided it with the rock ribs to the right. After gaining the ridge we did not use crampons to the summit. Marc Ledwidge ACMG/UIAGM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mcr at informalex.org Thu Aug 6 14:02:46 2009 From: mcr at informalex.org (Public Mountain Conditions Report) Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:02:46 -0600 Subject: [MCR] Bugaboos August 1-4 Message-ID: Just spent a few days in the bugs before the weather turned. Conditions are changing rapidly with the biggest issue being the Bugaboo-Snowpatch col. It continues to melt out and is currently much worse than I have ever seen it at this time of year. People are still using it to approach the upper Vowell Glacier but there have been several close calls due to rockfall lately. Almost the entire top half is bare ice covered with loose dirt and boulders and real (steel) crampons certainly come in handy. Most parties have been descending using the raps down the middle of the col then traversing back skiers left above the open crevasses at the bottom. Some parties are still trying to scramble down the top on the skiers left (Bugaboo) side to avoid the steepest ice but due to the amount of looses rubble on that side, it poses a huge rockfall hazard to anyone below. It is also good to keep in mind that ascending the col is likely a little safer earlier in the day than later when the ice is melting in the direct heat of the sun. This may seem obvious but there were a surprising number of parties casually taking their time heading up the col mid day when natural rockfall was at its highest and some parties had already started descending from their routes. An alternative to reduce your overall exposure is to use the Pigeon-Snowpatch raps at the end of the day. These work best if your are staying at the hut. It is necessary to cross fairly steep bare ice (~25 degrees) to get to the start of the raps right now which we crossed without crampons later in the day when the ice was soft but it could have been quite tricky had the ice been harder. It is also possible to use the upper Bugaboo Glacier as the approach to the West Ridge of Pigeon and East Creek to avoid the Bugaboo-Snowpatch col altogether for those routes. There are many large crevasses to navigate on the upper half but generally still good snow coverage. Parties have managed to get around the last big crevasse by either going into the moat against the South Face of Pigeon Spire or going hard left to gain the snow ridge near the Pigeon Feathers. Despite the difficulty in getting to some of the routes, climbing conditions in the Bugs are great right now with most routes being dry and travel on the glaciers still pretty straightforward for the most part. Have fun, -- Marc Pich? Mountain Guide -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: UpperVowellGlacier.jpg Type: application/octet-stream Size: 133295 bytes Desc: not available Url : -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: BugSPCol.jpg Type: application/octet-stream Size: 135571 bytes Desc: not available Url : From mcr at informalex.org Sun Aug 9 17:28:09 2009 From: mcr at informalex.org (Public Mountain Conditions Report) Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 15:28:09 -0600 Subject: [MCR] Farnham Tower Message-ID: <20090809212820.D1894205C6C7@smtprelay03.hostedemail.com> A couple friends and I put up what we think is a very fun new route up the true SE corner of Mt Farnham yesterday, starting from the valley of MacDonald Creek (4x4 no longer required as the road has been upgraded and bridges replaced a couple of years ago), up the east ridge to the tower, then traverse the red shale band to the south facing portion of the true SE corner. Follow excellent and surprisingly solid and clean quartzite cracks for 5 - 60 m pitches, mostly alpine 5.8 with hints of 5.9 to the false east summit, rappel down into the icy abyss splitting the summits and climb out west up a steep chimney to reach the true summit. Descend the south side of the tower. Round trip took us 19 hours. The entire Farnham Tower is now essentially snow free as is most of the normal route up Mount Farnham. On Mount Delphine, all the north facing couloirs are black dirt smeared ice and over the past 5 years the ice has receded very rapidly making some routes non-routes. The normal glacier route up Delphine from Peter's Pass still looks to be in good condition as do all routes up Commander Glacier including the Cleaver, Commander, Guardsmen, Jumbo (more blue ice showing now than previous years) and Karnak. The north couloir up Mt Peter is essentially out of condition and has succumbed to massive ice retreat. Enjoy, Kirk Mauthner; ACMG/UIAGM Mountain Guide PO Box 399 Invermere, BC Canada V0A 1K0 ph/fax (250) 342-6042 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mcr at informalex.org Sun Aug 9 18:43:35 2009 From: mcr at informalex.org (Public Mountain Conditions Report) Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 15:43:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [MCR] Fay, N Victoria, Boundary Ice Message-ID: <87810.61572.qm@web51910.mail.re2.yahoo.com> This past week Kirsten and I were able to observe some notable conditions in the Lake Louise group and Icefields. Our group spent a couple nights at the Neil Colgan hut in the drizzle and fog on Aug 5-7 and listened to non stop rockfall from all the surrounding peaks.? Fay's west ridge slopes were black ice with an enlarging Schrund and the Roth Kallen was completely black.? The Central Ice Bulge still looked good. Little had heaps of rockfall on its face as well. We did not have any over night freezes. The upper Victoria glacier (Aug 8) was also more bare then we had seen it before.? The typical route of travel to the col led us to an impassable crevasse.? We rerouted and went straight up from the rock buttress that you cross at the start of the glacier.? From there we traveled west under the schrund and down to get back to the flats that are approx 500m of travel away from the shrund crossing before the col. The obvious hazard here is rock fall as you are under Collier for the duration. The col right now is entirely rock. Once again, there was no overnight freeze. Looking across the way, Aberdeen looked to be ice most of the way up. In the Icefields, (Aug 9) we went up the Boundary Ice tongue towards A2, which is in good shape with lots of white ice still.? Glacier travel towards A2 looks like it could be quite complicated with bare ice and snow plugs.? We descended the icefall to skiers left which was tricky route finding and required some downclimbing on dirty ice, but still doable. This morning we did have a freeze which made both the ascent and descent feel much safer from rockfall. Overall, it seems like what are often straight forward glacier routes, have now become route finding challenges and may be potentially impossible or very time consuming. Overnight freezes also are important for keeping the rockfall hazard down on these now very icy faces. Sarah Hueniken ACMG Alpine Guide Kirsten Knechtel ACMG Mountain Guide From mcr at informalex.org Sun Aug 9 23:36:39 2009 From: mcr at informalex.org (Public Mountain Conditions Report) Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 21:36:39 -0600 Subject: [MCR] Mt Robson Aug 4-8/09 Message-ID: Flew to just above Extinquisher Tower on Aug 4 then headed up on foot to the Robson/Resplendent Col. Aug 5th we attempted the Kain Face from the R/R Col. Solid overnight freeze. We turned around 3 pitches up the Kain Face in a whiteout and retreated to the R/R Col. Clocked in at a 13 hour day, had we been able to continue up we would have bivoauced high on the mountain -it is a long ways. Aug 6th we were able to get a heli bump onto the Dome and set up our camp there. Another good overnight freeze. Aug 7th we climbed the Kain Face in fine frozen condition. We crossed the bergshrund on climbers far right and got ice screws for the first 2/3rds of the face. Snow overlies the ice on the upper 1/3rd and we used picket anchors. The traverse to the roof is now icy and has become steeper and more problematically featured over what it was in the 80s and 90s. Some frontpointing was required with three pitches run anchor to anchor with intermediate ice screw protection, and to think I use to just short rope across there with 2 quests! Gone are the days. Overall the mountain has lost much snow since my last trip there on July 21st. The Roof is now icy and we basically pitched out the whole thing. There was significant snow cover remaining above 11,500 feet and by the time we got there it was knee deep saturated snow, got water in my boots. We had some small surface sloughing occur, thankfully nothing bigger. We were able to get ice screw anchors save for the very last one which was a braced stance in snow with a couple questionable pickets as back up. The snow remained mush until we stepped onto the North aspect on the summit traverse where it was frozen. Butterflies and flies right to the top which we reached at 16:00, 12 hours after leaving the Dome. The snow didn't improve on the descent and we rapped the whole Roof. Saturated snow on the traverse back to the top of the Kain which we rapped, as the rest of the mountain, with one rope. Three snow anchors off of the top and then V threads all the way to the bergschrund. We got back to our tent at 02:00 on Aug 8th aided by the harvest moon. A long and difficult ascent given the poor snow conditions, but the mountain is changing fast, and, I think, for the better. Other observations: Mt Resplendent looks to have 2 crevasses cleaving its summit ridge, looked to be a challenge to get around. Gaining the Robson Helmet Col from the Dome looks to be very difficult due to a huge open bergshrund and other smaller ones. Happy trails, Barry Blanchard UIAGM/IFMGA Mountain Guide Yamnuska Mountain Adventures barryb3 at telus.net 1 403 609 4615 cell 1 403 609 1321 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: