[MCR] Rockies Ice

Here is a list of routes that I have climbed with guests over the last 3 weeks. All are in good shape unless otherwise noted:

 

Phantom Falls - short screws and a 2 inch cam useful

Spray River Falls

Red Man Soars - Spectre ice piton useful

Murchison Falls

Weeping Wall - Left Hand start/Snivelling Gully finish; the lines on the main wall are either thin or wet as of Dec 3

Guinness Gully - 13 cm screws useful on first pitch

Grotto Falls

King Creek

Tangle Falls

2 O'clock Falls

SARs on Ice

Balfour Wall

 

Avalanche hazard can change dramatically over a short period of time - please make your own decisions regarding current conditions.

 

Have fun and be safe,

 

Grant Meekins

Alpine Guide, Assistant Ski Guide

 

 

 

[MCR] Kananaskis Beacon Basin

The Beacon basin is set up once again at Burstall Pass trailhead in Kananaskis Country.  It’s about 200m down the well travelled trail.

 

Extra batteries are there in case the unit goes dead and if it does, please email Avalanche.Safety@gov.ab.ca so we can arrange to get more batteries up there.

 

Thanks!

 

Mike Koppang SG

Kananaskis Country Public Safety

[MCR] South Coast, Spearhead Range, Mt. Pattison

Guided a trip to Mt. Pattison today.

 

It was sunny with lots of high cloud and a west wind. Temps never got too high. Nothing more than a few warmed ice chips fell off the slopes.

 

We skied up the climbers L on the Decker Glacier. Had to wind a bit about through the crevasses but there was plenty of fill and bridging with 2.4m average depth on the ice. Coming back we crossed over the top of the Trorrey Gl, same story here, but the ice is now a bit more broken than usual.

 

Dug a test pit on the NW face of Pattison just below the summit at 2400m and found the Nov 25 ice crust 50cm from the surface.  A hard but clean compression test popped the column out just under this crust - in 1 Finger density snow which overlies Pencil hard snow. Above the crust was 1Finger to 4 Finger density snow that reacted to moderate compression but broke irregularly.

 

Saw 1 recent natural avalanche. A Sz 2.5 cornice/slab that came off Decker’s north side (between the 9^th Hole and the Finger Chutes, 2400m). The cornice drop pulled a 30m by 50cm deep slab.

 

All the warm alpine temps have made skinning up easy, but has not done a great service for the downhill part. Even just a little new snow would make things better.  

 

Dave Sarkany

SG

 

[MCR] Wapta Icefields - Bow Hut area

Spent the last two days touring out of the Bow Hut area, visiting the St.Nicholas/Olive Col and Rhondda South Peak. Had the hut to ourselves, which will probably never happen again in my lifetime!
 
Some observations that were made:
 
Average snowpack depth on the icefield is 200cm, with fairly even coverage on the eastern side of the icefield. There are a few sagging holes ~400m to the NW of St Nicholas, so if you're heading towards Mt Gordon, be aware of their presence.
 
No new avalanche activity was observed.  All activity noted had run probably during the storm cycle on November 30.  Quick tests and probing of slopes above 2400m showed a strong mid- to lower pack with a very soft to soft slab developing at the surface. Below 2400m, the snowpack averaged 100-120cm with generally a strong mid- to lower pack, except in areas of wind-scouring and moraines, where the base was quite faceted and weak.
 
Temperatures were cold on Wednesday (-28), but an inversion warmed things up on Thursday, and a pleasant -4 was measured on the summit of Rhondda South (3015m).
Winds were generally light from the north, except at ridgetop where moderate winds from the north were transporting snow.
 
Ski quality was variable. Ski penetration ranged from 10-15cm below 2400m. Above 2400m, 5cm was the maximum encountered.  If you know how to determine which snow surface is hard sustrugi and which is soft, then you will have excellent skiing. Otherwise plan on tricky ski conditions with fast travelling on the climb up.
 
Enjoy this upcoming -30 degree Arctic freeze! Brrrr....
 
Chris Gooliaff
ASG, ARG

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[MCR] Ursehole ice climb

Climbed Ursehole today.  In terms of avalanche hazard from above, I felt comfortable climbing the route as Yesterday,  I checked out Cascade mountain and was surprised to see less snow than I would have thought. Also the warm temps from last week has settled the snowpack and this latest cold spell has helped consolidate it for now, though the cold temps also caused some basal faceting that may haunt us later.  The bowl above Ursehole had some old isolated sluffs that ran about 50-70  meters, they did not trigger anything else and probably occurred during the storm. I could not detect much wind effect in the bowl either and the summit ridge cornices are currently very small. Small surface hoar limited to below treeline. We had great conditions on Ursehole today and the pocket glacier from last seasons compressed avalanche debris is quite amazing, forming a large roof overhead. Ursehole direct unfortunately was extremely wet with fragile chandeliers. The left fork climb was excellent. Bolted anchors are still looking good though one of the chains is looking a bit rusty.

Happy Trails

Eric Dumerac-IFMGA/ACMG Mountain Guide

iceXperts.ca  IGB guide bureau

eric@igbguides.com

 

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[MCR] Selkirks / Kokanees / Reco Mtn.

Hi All,

 

We took advantage of the blue bird conditions yesterday to get some fine skiing off the ridgeline north of Reco Mtn.

 

Hi temp of -9 and no wind.  HS 145-180 at treeline.  20cm ski pen, 40cm foot pen.

 

On a WSW aspect at 2250m in a 158cm pit we were getting moderate shears down 27cm and hard shears down 41cm.  Both were resistant and failing on old storm snow interfaces.  The bottom 112cm was pencil hard snow and the Halloween crust (40-47cm up) was breaking down and rounding out.  The top half meter showed a strong temperature gradient with the cold front already driving quite deep into the snowpack.  No other shears were noted on this aspect but at roughly the same elevation on a NNE aspect we were getting hard sudden planar results on an old buried surface hoar layer (2-3mm) 97cm down in a pit with an HS of 170cm.

 

We saw numerous old crown lines and several large gaping glide cracks on E to NE asps. 

 

Ridgetops were characterized by stiff, brittle cornices under the new soft storm snow.  Surface hoar growth was fairly widespread with some of the largest crystals (up to 35mm) found at ridgetop. 

 

The current surface will likely be our new problem layer once buried, with the surface hoar and facet growth.

 

Good turns to be had now though.  Just watch for buried windslabs.

 

Cheers,

Shaun King 

CAA Prof. & ACMG ASG
www.mountainsense.ca 

[MCR] South Coast Wirlwind Pk

Hi,

 

Yesterday did a guiding job where we skied from Whistler Mountain over the Musical Bumps to Whirlwind Pk and then back again.

 

WB has now built a cat road to the top of Flute and the ski area boundary was still at Boundary Bowl (nearly under and parallel with Symphony Chair).

Travel on top of the Bumps was easy with Ski Pen being 10-15 cm. Here there was Surface Hoar up to 7mm growing on all aspects.

The Surface Hoar got very small or was not at all beyond Russet Lk.

 

We past under Fissile’s S aspect during the heat of the day. I did not take a temperature but can say we had to undress to T shirts. Not a snow ball or sluff came off the rocks above.  I did not see evidence of recent Natural Avalanches anywhere.

 

Mid way up the little glacier on Wirlwind I found the height of snow above the ice greater than my 240cm probe. The Nov 25 crust was about 30cm below the surface. Higher up, on a more SW aspect, the snow surface was windblown to expose the hard November 25 crust which almost made skinning difficult.

 

Downhill ski quality was good. In higher locations wind effect made for grippy variable turns. From 2200m down last Sundays rain (November 30 crust, which is very thin -1cm max and buried under variable amounts of snow) makes for the occasional trippy turn.  But the cloudless sky and sun made up for that!

 

Dave Sarkany

SG