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ACMG Mountain Conditions Summary for the Rockies
and Columbia Mountains issued June 7th, 2007.
You may have noticed that it rained a bit in the
past couple of days! The heavy rain in the mountains has melted a lot
of snow up to approximately 2700m. We can assume that rain soaked or wet
snow is the norm way up into the alpine. All travel in the alpine, on
the glaciers and on snow covered non- glaciated terrain will depend on the
state of the melt-freeze cycle. From the current weather forecast it seems very
likely that snow travel may be poor this weekend. The snowpack, at least up to approximately 3350m, has been subjected to
intense radiation and rain in the last two weeks. It has gained a lot
of strength and though small wet avalanches are likely this weekend, hopefully
we are past most of the large slab avalanche activity.
Alpine rockclimbing venues like Castle Mtn are
slowly coming into shape. There will still be some additional rockfall hazard as
the snowpatches melt away and N faces may have enough snow in gullies to cause
problems.
The biggest consideration for this weekend is
perhaps the running water. Obviously, all rivers and streams are brown, fast and
swollen right now and will remain so for a while. There is also a lot
of water running under the remaining snowpack around treeline and especially in
some avalanche gullies. You REALLY don't want to punch through the snow and fall
into a swollen creek.
If we ever get some cool, clear spring weather
after this monsoon, alpine climbing conditions could be excellent for
awhile. Clipping bolts and getting fit is probably all we can hope for this
weekend.
Larry Stanier
Mountain Guide
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