June 27th, accelerated start up the spine of the left hand berm/morraine
to rockband just left of single waterfall. Good 50 m cable to pull on
here (a Canadian via ferrata! relic of the mining days?), watch for burs
and metal slivers. Up ledges left of the drainage to a cliff where the
drainage is split into two with two waterfalls. Easy and quick traverse
right (unseen seracs above so hustle) to a treed shoulder leading up to
the right skyline and the big bench right of the glacier. Did 4 or 5 of
the upper ridge pitches to a number of bivy ledges, one of which is the
big one, and the one that we slept on, snow may be gone from here in
awhile.
June 28th, long day up the long ridge, 6 am start to 8pm finish on the
summit and a 2nd comfortable bivy. Numerous passages of wet ice and
slushy snow up high. Started a number of sloppy surface sluffs, but the
snow underlying was good mature summer stuff. 2-4 icescrews would have
been helpful, we took none (all the ice and snow could go away with
another week or two of summer).
June 29th, descended the South ridge to the col above the North glacier
with one 50m rappel and one 15m one. Walked down snow slopes into the
remote and lovely valley behind Mt Stephen. Stayed high riding skier's
right treeline, then tending right once in the trees to eventually meet
the Fossil Bed trail (easy bushwack actually). This is a different
descent than the SW ridge written in Selected Alpine which looked to be
tedious with a thick icing of snow sitting of the ridge.
Long route, grade VI for most parties. Much choss overall. I think that
the E ridge of Mt Patterson is a similar and better route.
Happy trails
Barry Blanchard, mountain guide
www.yamnuska.com
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