[MCR] Mt Bryce South Face

Subject: [MCR] Mt Bryce South Face
Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 11:52:53 -0600
Tom H and I climbed the South Face of Bryce on Thursday Aug 3, summitting the Main and Central peaks.

Conditions were good, with 5-10 cm of recent storm snow frozen atop the old surfaces making for good cramponing in the early morning. These old surfaces varied from good firn snow to rock embedded ice in the lower couloir. On the south face of the Main Summit block it was the storm snow atop firn the entire way. On the Central Peak the west ridge was slow going with several cm of recent snow on the rocks making travel slippery. It took over 2 hours to climb this ridge, more than twice the length of time it normally does. Wherever it was snow travel though the going was quite fast.

We were lucky with the weather, a clear night gave a good freeze and cloud moving in later in the day kept things cool for the descent (although the footing was not nearly as secure for our descent due to some warming having occurred). There is a lot of fresh snow in the couloir and the cliffs above it, when it warms up it will be a war zone in there with rockfall and avalanches likely. If you go, have a plan for staying out of the couloir in the afternoon. You could either put in a high camp on the glacial plateau and descend early in the morning after your summit climbs, or wait until evening and descend after it cools in the couloir. Also, the s face of the summit block is prone to rapid heating. The east ridge of the main peak is another option but it is more problematic to climb with the knife edge snow arete near the top.

Overnight Aug 3 and the morning of Aug 4 the weather turned very bad again, with major rain and snow events in this area. The mountains were white down to 2500m. I would say the NE Ridge is out for the time being, the S Face could still be good if temperatures are cold. This snow seemed very spotty on the drive home, with varying amounts noticed in different areas, even on adjacent mountains.

Mark Klassen
Mountain Guide