[MCR] Rockies, Mt Kitchener, Grand Central Coulior

My guest and I decided to go check out the Grand Central Coulior on Mt Kitchener on Wed, Nov 3rd. We had our eyes open for slabs on the drive up as friends of mine had witnessed a large slab avalanche rip wall to wall on the big half-way ledge on the North Face of Mt Cromwell on Oct 30th. That avalanche turned the whole lower wall of Cromwell white. Also I got a second hand report of a team retreating from the Asteroid Alley route on Mt Andromeda because of slab conditions. I started noticing recent slab activity from around Bow Summit, and northe, with a very large slab out on the summit ridge of Mt Epaulette. The below pictured slab on the Ramp route of Mt Athabasca was spooky to see, but we decided to go stick our noses into Kitchener and have a look. Thus far the principal risk of our trip was hard packed snow on the highway. It is time for winter tires on the 93 North.

The approach into the face is in fine walking shape with no water to walk through on the Sunwapta River. Picture of the face below. We camped on the glacier below the face. A number of slabs were out on the face.

Nov 4th we left the tent at 5am. The initial bergshrund had been scoured down to summer snow by avalanches. One hundred meters higher we entered the first pillow of storm snow, got out the shovel and dug a test pit. We found a moderate shovel compression test and two easy to moderate shovel shear tests. The failures were clean pops with the recent storm snow failing on the October surface that had been rained on, and then frozen (this surface had granted us fine climbing conditions on our ascent of the Robinson/Arbic route on Mt Cromwell on Oct 19th). It appears that the snows and, mostly, the winds of the last week have overloaded that interface. We turned around and went back to tent for tea.

As a consolation prize we made the first ascent of the below pictured ice/mixed climb: WI 3+, 5.7 mixed, thin -you need rock gear. The route is on the lower cliffs between K2 and K3 (Kitchener 1 and 2), and we called it K9 because we got pooched on Kitchener.

Happy trails,

Barry Blanchard

Mountain Guide

www.barryblanchard.ca

www.yamnuska.com

Nov 3rd