ACMG Mountain Conditions Summary for the Rockies
and Columbia Mountain issued May 17th, 2007
It may feel like summer in the valleys but it is
still late winter above 2500m close to the divide. Generally the conditions and
snowcover feels more like late april than mid may. A picture is worth 1000
words and the wintry photos below were taken today in the Lake Louise area,
courtesy of Marc Ledwidge of the Banff Warden Service.
There is still over 100cms of snow at Bow Summit,
snow in shady spots at the Lake Louise crags and buried tent platforms at
the Columbia Icefields campground. The road to the Bugaboos
has avalanche deposits up to 10m deep as of last week and rumour is that it
won't be plowed till early june. Lots of trails close to the divide are
still buried. The snowpack is rarely freezing now on non-glaciated terrain so
expect some serious postholing if you are breaking trail below treeline this
weekend. Snowcover is excellent on the glaciers but there is probably more
bare ice than usual in the high alpine given some of the big winds we had this
winter.
There have been reports of good travel and climbing
conditions in the alpine around Lake Louise, Rogers Pass and the Columbia
Icefields area in the past week. These good conditions have been
found almost completely on snow covered glaciated terrain and are mainly
due to some cold, clear nights and people getting up and down things while the
snowpack is frozen. There had been scattered avalanche activity in the daytime
heat. This scenario changed dramatically today in the Lake Louise area. The
snowpack did not recover any strength during last night's overcast skies.. A
warm day brought on a large avalanche cycle in the LL area. A class 2.5
avalanche(possibly skier triggered) ran from Saddle Pass into the larch trees
and a size 3 avalanche(possibly goat triggered-see photo)ran from below Suprise
Pass well into the creek. Numerous large avalanche were observed on the south
facing terrain off Mt. White and its neighbours. This is likely to continue in
all areas this weekend given the generally grey, warm and rainy forecast for the
mountain parks. Without a good, solid freeze brought on by a cold
clear night, backcountry travel, especially in avalanche terrain, would
probably be a really bad idea
Alpine rock venues close to the divide like
Mt. Louis, Castle mtn, the Colin range and most Rogers Pass
classics would still involve some potentially scary swimming in deep snow
and even Chinaman's peak would involve some snow manouvers to get to the
base. Yamnuska and the Ghost are reasonable good bets if the rain stays
away and most rivers seem fairly low for this time of
year.
This is the first mountain conditions summary
for the season and we will strive to put out weekly summaries till the Canadian
Avalanche Centre starts reporting again in November. Thanks for tuning
in.
Larry Stanier
Mountain Guide
