Peaks climbed were Sir Sandford via NW Ridge rock variation on Aug 5, Silvertip East Ridge Aug 7 and West Ridge of Collosal Aug 9.
We had rain and/or snow every day of the trip, often in the form of hard afternoon showers for a few hours. Of note was the storm the night of Aug 7/8 which saw it rain at 2-5 mm per hour for a good 12 hours, luckily with little wind. This rain turned to snow at the tail end of the precipitation event. A cold front moved through the night of Aug 8, thunder and lightning, and 5 cm of snow above 2400m. It snowed a good part of the day Aug 10 above 2500 m. On our flight out Aug 11 we went past the south faces of Ironman/Austerity/Turret/Adamant and the rock faces and ridges were very wet and snowy and unappealing due to what looked like 10-20 cm of snow and I would say we would need several days of warm weather to get them back in shape. Sir Sandford was in the same boat. There was a lot of cloud floating around the peaks on Aug 11 and it didn't seem to be warming up too much up there, with little melt.
Glaciers were in fine shape, minimal foot penetration, good coverage, strong crevasse bridges. Bergschrunds were large however and would have been an issue if we had attempted any routes that needed to cross one.
On Sir Sandford NW Ridge we climbed the variation described by Andrew Langsford in his MCR of July 21. We were a bit right of where he described and found the climbing unpleasant and awkward on poor rock (but not too difficult). Still, this variation was better than the Hourglass, which looked difficult and unpleasant as well, due to gravel and a schrund. The upper mountain had a fair bit of bare ice on the glacier (25-35 degrees) and some wandering around crevasses. I was surprised by the poor rock quality on this route, in some ways it is worse than Mt Alberta although the climbing is easier (we realized why it is called Sir SANDford). The Hourglass is definitely the way to go if it is in shape.
Gaining the Silvertip Glacier seems easiest via an approach past the base of the East Ridge of Silvertip Mountain. The stream crossing is easier, the crevasses were very negotiable and it seems quite direct to the routes in that area. This approach is described in Jones' book under the Silvertip Mountain E Ridge route description.
The traverse from Great Cairn to Austerity Glacier is very cool although care must be taken in the loose gully getting to Belvedere Notch.
Mark Klassen
Mountain Guide