Search MCR

Thursday, March 26, 2009

[MCR] Coast Range: Garibaldi Neve Traverse

Just did the Neve traverse yesterday, and overall conditions are pretty good.  We did not stop long enough for snow obs, wx obs, etc...so here are just some general obs on conditions.

Last weeks avalanche cycle was quite extensive across the traverse, most major slopes had visible wide crowns of ~1m.  Lots of debris in drainage bottoms.  Now about 20-30cms filling in the old slide paths.  Made me feel better about crossing certain slopes, like dropping into Ring Creek under the Gargoyles and going down to Garibaldi Lake as all of the paths had slid.  Temps stayed quite cool, and we didn't really experience any wet/heavy snow the whole day. 

The only real snow bridges/crevasses encountered were crossing under Garibaldi towards the sharks fin, but the one bridge we had to cross was quite fat, and things were quite well filled in. 

On the trail out from the lake, things still have good coverage.  Snow conditions got quite horrible around the 4-5km mark, and serious injury seemed quite possible on the death cookie covered trail.  No rocks until the last km of trail, and then icy pine needles and rocks to the bottom.

Evan Stevens
Mountain Guide
evan_stevens@hotmail.com



Quick access to Windows Live and your favorite MSN content with Internet Explorer 8.