Sunday Oct 8:
Perren route -- there is a dusting of snow on the rock starting at valley
bottom and steadily increasing in volume the higher you go. On the Perren
step, most holds have a little snow or ice on them. Overall this made for
slower going. Past the two bolted pitches we traversed far right and climbed
the left margin of the glacier to bypass the last step ("M2") rather than
stick to the icy rock, which worked well.
Glacier/Mt Fay W ridge -- there is about 5-7 cm of low density, facetted
storm snow above 2700 m, 1 mm surface hoar observed. This has been
redistributed somewhat by wind, but we didn't see any major cornice
development or windloading. Still, I did kick off a small reactive soft slab
(20 cm thick & 4 m wide at the crown, broke clean and fast) right at the lip
approaching the Bergschrund, I imagine from spindrift floating down from the
steep slope above. The schrund is spectacular, but easily negotiated on the
climber's left. The slope itself was partly cleaned out by sloughing and the
remaining 5-15 cm of snow is mostly facetted and non-consolidated with
brittle ice below.
Temperatures: -6 C at 5 am in the parking lot at Moraine Lake, -7 C at 1 pm
at 2800 m. Little to no wind throughout the day.
My major concern in this area would be isolated pockets of windloading. I
would be extra-cautious, for example, of the steps on the north glacier
route on the far left (Chouinard Route).
Regards,
Tom Wolfe
AAG
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