We spent the past 3 days (Feb 4-6) ice guiding around Jasper and the Columbia Icefields. The following is a report on conditions encountered.
Road Conditions: Highway 93 North (Lake Louise to Jasper) is primarily packed snow and ice and is quite slippery, especially in the mornings before the day warms up and melts the roads a bit.
Weather: The weather has been very mild the past few days with afternoon highs above zero Celsius at Beauty Creek Hostel (~1550m). We received about 3cm of new snow (about 1cm per day).
Snow Conditions: Previous cold temps has left the area with a bottomless, facetted snowpack. If you step off the packed trail you stink right to the ground in unconsolidated sugar. Open areas near treeline have a stiff wind crust/slab. Daytime warming on Feb 5 was causing pinwheeling and small (size .5) point release avalanches on south aspects, below tree line.
Ice Conditions: The warm temperatures are providing very plastic/forgiving ice conditions on Shades of Beauty, Melt Out and Weeping Wall. We climbed Weeping Wall Right and Snivelling Gully today and both were perfect hero ice offering one-swing sticks and solid screws. Upper Weeping Wall / Weeping Pillar looks like it is starting to get a bit white from sun-leaching. The middle pitches on Snivelling Gully are thinning with the warm temps making it is easy to punch a leg through to the flowing water below. Curtain Call looks to be in hard shape with a skinny pillar and big roof on the last pitch.
Maligne Canyon ice: all routes, including the complete ‘original route’ are in great shape. Note that even when the canyon is formed up well, there is significant hazard when negotiating the ‘pools’ of water. Two days ago they were mostly covered with a suitable layer of ice but this could change rapidly. Falling through the ice is a very real possibility and not something ice climbers are used to dealing with.
Rob Owens (alpine guide)
Sean Isaac (assistant alpine guide)