[MCR] ACMG Mountain Conditions Summary for July 31st, 2008.

ACMG Mountain Conditions Summary for the Rockies and Columbia Mountains issued July 31st, 2008

 

The recent history- As of tuesday afternoon, conditions in the mountains were excellent. Tuesday night through Wednesday approximately 10-20 cms of snow fell along the divide in the Rockies and a bit less in the Columbias. Today, Thursday, was a clear cold day everywhere. Some melting occurred today in the Rockies and Columbias and with one more sunny day the alpine could be in fine shape again.

 

The forecast is for a bit of a cool grey weekend so it may not feel exactly like summer in the mountains. There will very likely be patches of verglas above treeline and snow up high, especially on the North faces. It will be a bit of a suffer-fest on places like the North face of Temple(I suppose it always is)but sunny alpine rock could be fun if the wind stays low.  As we said last week, have a good look before committing to any of the big routes. Some are in excellent shape and others are still fairly buried in old snow and the frosting from Tuesday/Wednesday. 

 

Classic ridges like Sir Donald, Victoria and Edith Cavell could be in good shape if we get a sunny day friday or saturday and no more precipitation.

 

By the standards of recent summers, snow and ice routes like Athabasca, Lefroy and Fay etc are in excellent condition for early august. Glacier travel conditions are also potentially very good if we get decent overnight freezes. 

 

During the last warm spell there was a few scattered, worrisome avalanches to the glacial ice. These were all on steepish NE facing ice faces around the Lake Louise group. Most, but not all of them were triggered by cornice fall and/or rain. Perhaps it is not a concern given the forecast but if it gets warm, keep this info in mind. 

 

If you are heading into the alpine, I would suggest bringing your woollies and lots of warm duds. I have been wearing way too many clothes the past three days walking uphill and never came close to breaking a sweat. It would be REALLY miserable spending a night outside in your cute little softshell and Capri's this weekend.

 

Be patient, summer is coming. Maybe in 2009.

 

Larry Stanier

Mountain Guide

 

 

 

 

[MCR] Mountain condition report for the South Coast of British Columbia.

Mountain condition report for the South Coast of British Columbia.

This week has been dominated by the return of wet weather to the coast.
Freezing levels have remained between 2200 and 2500m throughout the period.
Little information has been available about the exact build up of new snow above these elevation. However, from a recent drive of the Duffy lake road and from observations around the Whistler area there appears to be only 5-10cms above 2500m.
With the recent Precipitation and warm temps from the weeks before, the Glaciers are starting to look a bit more as they should for this time of year. Most glacier toes are down to bare ice and many more crevasses have started to open in the past few weeks.
Some alpine faces such as Mt. Matiers north face, Joffre's NE face, Slalok, Wedge, Garibaldi and many others, have now lost some of their winter snow and are starting to show bare ice in places.
>From a report last week the troublesome Slesse pocket Glacier is still half there and quite dangerous at the moment. It may be best to wait a few more weeks till the rest hopefully falls off.

With the forecasted high pressure arriving this weekend and a return to warmer temps most of this new snow should melt off by Sunday and we should be back to great alpine conditions soon. In the meantime you may want to be a bit cautious on glaciers were the new snow has lightly hidden some crevasses and where the snow may have built up to deeper amounts and may cause some small avalanches when it warms up.

Have fun out there!

Craig McGee, ACMG/IFMGA Mountain Guide

_______________________________________________
These observations and opinions are those of the person who submitted them. The ACMG and its members take no responsibility for errors, omissions, or lapses in continuity. Conditions differ greatly over time and space due to the variable nature of mountain weather and terrain. Application of this information provides no guarantee of increased safety. Do not use the Mountain Conditions Report as the sole factor in planning trips or making decisions in the field.
Please check out http://acmg.ca/mcr for more information.

[MCR] Brewers Buttress / Castle Mountain

Did Brewers Butress on Castle Mountain today. As expected, route and descent gully are totally dry. There is still water running in the pm at the exit of the ascent gully on your way to the hut, which might be of interest for anyone wishing to spend the night in the hut. Aslo, looking at the high peaks around Lake Louise (namely Temple) it seemed that most of the new snow which had fallen yesterday and over the previous night in higher elevations, had melted out by the end of the day.

 

Cheers,

Jorg Wilz

 

Mountain Guide

[MCR] Little Sister

Climbed Little Sister today (N ridge/aka "Grassi Route"), a highly
enjoyable adventure as usual.

The route was in good shape, mostly dry with occasional icy patches in
the gully. Descent rappels are in decent shape with mostly new slings.
Bring along a hammer, pins, and tat in addition to your cams: this is
still an old school mountain.

There's a quite decent approach trail that starts about 1 km from the
golf course, and I recommend taking the time to find it. From your car,
take your choice of a wide variety of roads and trails east of the creek
and head south. Pretty much where the major treed ridge off of the
Little Sister comes down close to the creek you'll find a steep bank
with a trail to your left/east. This is right around where you start to
see pieces of an old wooden penstock and well before the dam. The path
is well defined and fairly well flagged almost all the way to the base
of the route except for a section of blowdown about 100m up from the
creek, and at the obvious "Sound of Music" glade that you can see from town.

Regards,
Tom Wolfe
_______________________________________________
These observations and opinions are those of the person who submitted them. The ACMG and its members take no responsibility for errors, omissions, or lapses in continuity. Conditions differ greatly over time and space due to the variable nature of mountain weather and terrain. Application of this information provides no guarantee of increased safety. Do not use the Mountain Conditions Report as the sole factor in planning trips or making decisions in the field.
Please check out http://acmg.ca/mcr for more information.

[MCR] Mt Aberdeen North Glacier

Climbed the North Glacier of Mt Aberdeen yesterday. A little bit of a
freeze: ice forming on puddles below the glacier. There was rockfall
off the climber's left edge of the ice tounge, we approached for
climber's right. Crossed the bergshrund on climber's left. A strange
drum skin of ice, separated from the true ice face by several
centimeters, in places; had to chop through it to get real screws.

We descended the gully to the south east. The valley bottom trail out
of Paradise Valley has been closed since the last time I was there,
seems the way to go now is to head up valley to the gain the Giant
Steps trail and then climb to the Lake Annette trail, would have
saved us several fordings of paradise creek and some bushwacking.

Barry Blanchard
Mountain Guide
_______________________________________________
These observations and opinions are those of the person who submitted them. The ACMG and its members take no responsibility for errors, omissions, or lapses in continuity. Conditions differ greatly over time and space due to the variable nature of mountain weather and terrain. Application of this information provides no guarantee of increased safety. Do not use the Mountain Conditions Report as the sole factor in planning trips or making decisions in the field.
Please check out http://acmg.ca/mcr for more information.

[MCR] Mt Louis / Gmoser Route

Great day on Mount Louis today. Gmoser route and descent were in perfect
condition, descent only had the odd trickle of water. Judging from the
summit register Kain Rt & Homage to the Spider have been getting lots of
traffic, but today was quiet, we were the only party up there.

Regards,
Tom Wolfe
ASG/AAG
_______________________________________________
These observations and opinions are those of the person who submitted them. The ACMG and its members take no responsibility for errors, omissions, or lapses in continuity. Conditions differ greatly over time and space due to the variable nature of mountain weather and terrain. Application of this information provides no guarantee of increased safety. Do not use the Mountain Conditions Report as the sole factor in planning trips or making decisions in the field.
Please check out http://acmg.ca/mcr for more information.

[MCR] Northern Selkirks, Adamants, Austerity Glacier.

Just came out from a week of climbing in the Austerity glacier side of the Adamants. Unsettled weather was the main story of the week, however there were still a few good days of climbing. Lots of snow is still left over from the winter and the mountains feel more like late June than almost August. Overall the temperatures were quite cool and every day there was a good overnight refreeze. Travel on the snow was very good and crampons were needed on about half the mornings. The crevasses and bergshrunds on the Austerity glacier are just starting to open up, but pose little problems. There is quite a bit of snow left in the Ironman descent gully but it is still wise to rappel on the climbers left side in three 60m rappels and a little bit of down-climbing. This lessens the chance of getting your ropes stuck and of rockfall. All other rock routes in the area were free of snow and dry when it was not raining.   Have Fun. Craig McGee. MG .