Climbed north peak of Mt. Victoria from Watchtower creek on Monday.
Gaining glacier at 8000' easy but requires thinking - the serac threat
is very real. We gained the ice on the left side of the tongue and did
2 diagonal pitches on 35 degree ice to reach lower angled travel - there
is walking route on the right side of the toe but it is very threatened
by active seracs. Crevasses are still bridged (barely) and crossable
through the middle of the glacier although you need to be creative to
stay on solid ground. Crossed to the left side of glacier for upper face
and the snow line is at 9000'. Upper route to NE ridge mostly snow with
lots of serac debris in the middle of the glacier from high on the north
face - stay left of travel fast across the middle.
Snow not frozen but there was some crust that kept us happy - these
upper slopes to the col are very snowy still with lots of big wet
grains. This would be a very bad place to be in a rainstorm or super
warm day. NE ridge from Vic/Coller col no problem on snow.
East side of Vic/Collier col melted out but good travel on bad rock,
some cornice hazard remains overhead - shrund easy to cross. Upper
Victoria glacier crevasses opening up and we did an end run under Mt.
Collier and back to get around open crevassses with a sagging trail
across them.
Still quite snowy above 10 000' - most terrain that is normally black
and icy by mid Aug. is still snow covered (Lefroy, Sickle). Big crack
looks to be spanning the glacier below Abbot's Hut.
Grant Statham
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