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
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