HI all early season keeners,
Headed up the Robertson Glacier in K-country yesterday (Oct 20th) afternoon to check out some climbing off the Haig Glacier.
We put ski’s on just before the toe of the Robertson. The glacier was 90% covered by snow with variable surfaces from wind scoured neve and soft wind deposited snow up to 1m deep over a variety of crusts and wind hardened surfaces.
As seen in most glaciated areas, the snow seems to be quite strong and is providing good bridging over crevasses, but with such a varying depth in the snowpack it would be easy to misjudge and punch through into a crevasse. Fall and early winter is commonly the most dangerous and unpredictable time of year to travel on glaciers as the snow may be “strong” but it may only be a few centimeters thick over large holes! Unless you are very familiar with the glacier (when it’s free of snow) and have good visibility to see the crevasses, than a rope and the skill set to use it is highly advisable.
We camped on the Haig Glacier and snow fell throughout the night. About 15 – 20cm’s of snow accumulated overnight, low of -9C, at 2700m, on the Great Divide. With moderate South winds we came across new soft slabs up to 1m deep in sheltered pockets on the Haig Glacier and on the North side of the Sir Douglas/Robertson col. It was snowing lightly with moderate gusts from the south at 0800 today as we retreated back up to the col and down the Robertson. The snow that fell over night was already hardening and the skiing down the glacier was fair. I would not recommend hiking up there to go skiing right now. No big surprises in that observation.
I would expect to see soft slab development throughout the area (likely throughout the
Kananaskis Country Ice Observations:
“The Drip at the Center of the Universe” looked very good with ice from top to bottom. Having been up there in past years I would guess there is a pitch of WI 5or 5+ but no mixed. A light rock rack with pitons would be a wise chioce to make belay/rappel anchors if you continue to the summit and if I am wrong in my observations. Surely lots of spindrift today but the approach gully heading up to the climb itself didn’t seem to have much snow, yet.
“R and D” area looked very lean.
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“Trick or Treat” is ‘in’, and the approach is not 4 hours as mentioned in the Ice climbing guide book but more like 1.5 hours.
Ice on the base of
Rob Owens
ACMG Alpine Guide