French Reality is in decent shape right now, thin on the first two pitches
(mainly rock climbing), last two pitches are in good shape. Not quite the
give-away that it was last year but still soft for the grade.
Two 70 m raps puts you at the base nice and quick. Bring a half dozen cams
to 2.5/3", a few tricams, and a few nuts. Looking at Rob Owens' recent
photos I thought that the ice was in the chimney (and so brought an overly
skimpy rack) but it's not -- it's on the wall to the right and is thin.
Snowpack in the Stanley Valley consists of about 30 cm of dry,
unconsolidated faceting snow with a thin temp/rain?/wind crust on the top
(up to 10 mm thick) in patches. Snow levels are below threshold for
avalanches at least as far as Nemesis.
Regards,
Tom Wolfe
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