Mountain Conditions Summary for the Rockies and Interior Ranges. August 12th,
2005
Summer is definetly here up to approximately 3200meters. There is generally
little change since the last report on August 4th.
Reports from the Rockies and Interior speak of bare ice on low elevation
glaciers and on some ice faces. Some examples of this would be the lower
Bugaboo glacier, Athabasca North Glacier and the North face of Mt. Fay.
Reports from higher elevation glaciers in most areas still talk about good to
excellent snow travel. Examples of these conditions would be the Upper Vowell
glacier, Bugaboo Snowpatch Col and the West face of Mt. Lefroy.
A good example of the combination of these conditions would be Mt Victoria on
August 9th. From the Abott pass hut there was excellent summer climbing
conditions up to to the ridge at 3200meters. The Sickle was in great shape.
After that the summit ridge had a hard snow cover on cornices, little knife
edges and some gullies. This combined with weak snow around the rocks on the
sunny east face made it unusually tricky up high. The descent onto the Huber
glacier was on excellent hard snow around 11am and Huber ledges were completely
dry.
The cold and rainy weather that hit the east slope of the Rockies on August
10th appears to have had little effect in the main ranges. Generally, it seems
that insufficient snow fell to increase the avalanche hazard in most areas. The
main consideration for alpinists is that enough snow fell in scattered
locations in the Rockies above 3000meters to make the rock slippery for awhile.
It appears that freezing levels were higher in the interior as of the evening
on August 11th.
The effects of solar radiation and daytime heating are still the main driving
force behind alpine hazards at present. Predicting spontaneous rockfall with
daytime melting, weak snowbridges over crevasses, wet snow avalanches, cornice
collapses etc. all require you to be assessing where the alpine is frozen in
place, and where it is losing strength as the snow and ice becomes more like
water.
The 5 day weather forecast is generally calling for a mix of sun and
precipitation in most areas. Mountain conditions will change with any
precipitation and the possibility of thunderstorms increases as more moisture
is present and more weather systems pass through.
Some "normal" summer routes such as the West Ridge of Mt. Hungabee and the
Japanese route on Mt. Alberta are still plastered in wet snow and are probably
a bad idea right now. It is also generally still too warm, too often for most
of the big mixed North Face routes. There are however, lots of routes in
excellent condition all over the Rockies and in the Bugaboos and Rogers Pass
right now. Choose your objectives carefully and get out there while it lasts.
Larry Stanier
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