August 12th there was a good freeze, even some dry drifted snow at the Colgan Hut. Mostly a supportive crust over to the mountain with a couple of 10 meter sections of breakable crust. We chose the Central Ice Bulge Direct because the bergshrund crossing looked the easiest, and the route looked cleaner from rockfall than the Kallen/Roth, not that anything was moving given the frost, and the mountain did look 'fresh' sporting its coating of new snow. The bergshrund crossing on the Kallen/Roth looks like it would involve an overhanging move or two. The Central IBD bergschrund is filled in at the drainage point and easy to get across right now. The route was in great shape, some moisture over the ice in places. We were on the summit at 10:30 and chose to rappel the route. 5 x 60 meter rappels off of abalakovs put us back onto the glacier, then off down the Perrin Route. A trick that we used was to cache our overnight stuff on the glacier below the West Ridge start, saves having to return to the hut if you are going down the Perrin.
The bergshrund crossing for the West Ridge looks ... undoable? A fast party of 3 (left the parking lot at 4 am via the Schiesser Ledges) followed us up the route and descended the West Ridge, but opted to traverse the satellite peak west of the normal approach slope and descend the ice slope on its far side (west). That slope has a doable bergshrund crossing right now.
Happy trails,
Barry Blanchard
UIAGM/IFMGA Mountain Guide
Yamnuska Mountain Adventures
1 403 609 4615
cell 1 403 609 1321