My fellow guide, Sharon Wood, and I spent the last several days guiding in the Columbia Icefields:
May 16th we climbed the Southeast ridge of Mt Wilcox. An ice axe is good to have in hand as there is still a fair amount of snow up there.
May 17th we climbed Boundary Peak from the Athabasca/Boundary col. We gained the col via the lower North Athabasca Glacier and ice tongue, great travel on the glacier at present and little snow left on the rock ridge leading to the top. Grand bumsliding on the northwest slope descent.
May 18th we ascended the AA Col route on Athabasca. Perfect cramponing on the 'magic crust' in the morning, good boot top penetration on our descent of the North Ramp. The "new" serac threatening the east end of the Ramp has calved twice in the last 2-3 weeks. We scampered under it in a couple of minutes then gave its runout a wide berth. Great conditions overall.
Happy trails,
Barry Blanchard
Mountain Guide
www.barryblanchard.ca
www.yamnuska.com