[MCR] Little Crowfoot

Subject: [MCR] Little Crowfoot
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 18:06:18 -0700
Dave, Jeff, Andy and I skied up to the toe of the Little Crowfoot (Ferris) Glacier today. This is the glacier to the south of Bow Hut, with Crowfoot Mountain to the east and "Vulture" Peak to the west.

Wx: No precipitation, max -9, min -10, high thin overcast with valley fog and fog on the Wapta icefield, calm all day, 2 cm new snow overnight and 10-15 cm storm snow from the previous several days.

No avalanche activity noted.

Below treeline all the way through the canyon there isn't enough snow to avalanche. Just below treeline this changes and there is about 50-75 cm of snow, the mid-pack is weak and you punch through it about 50% of the time both up and down, into the weak facets beneath. The mid-pack slab here doesn't seem to have a lot of tension in it and there were no whumpfs.

Once in the moraines, the wind got to the snowpack before the most recent storm leaving a hard layer that supports a skier. About 10 cm of soft storm snow lies on top of that. On the bottom are the ubiquitous facets. This combination resulted in loud whumpfs all the way through the moraines, every 10 or 20 meters.

So we stayed on terrain less than 30 degrees and away from any large slopes above. Our late start necessitated a descent from the toe of the glacier rather than going onto the glacier and summitting Little Crowfoot peak. I would have been leery of going straight up the steep toe of the glacier, it's less steep at the easternmost edge of it.

Excellent ski quality to treeline, with the fluff on top of the hard surface. Once in the trees it wasn't very good, we broke through the mid-pack into the weak snow near the ground. Lots of small rocks to dodge on the way out.

I rated the Danger as Considerable in the alpine, Moderate at treeline, Low below treeline.

Mark Klassen
Mountain Guide
mark@xxxxxxxxxxxx
www.alpinism.com