Guided a guest up the West Ridge on Tues. The glaciers
on the NW side are in great condition, completely snow covered with excellent
travel, boot top foot pen and well bridged crevasses and shrund.
The ridge is dry and easy traveling until the last 300m of
elevation gain from the summit. Then the conditions are mixed with 2 - 3 cm of
new snow from Mondays rain as well as short sections of water ice and veraglass.
The mixed conditions made the grade 5.5 climbing very slow and tricky to
manage on the down sloping rock and the decent even
slower.
There is a lot of loose rock in the 4th class terrain but it
is not to bad on the 5th class climbing sections. This route is
similar to the ridge routes on Mt Assinaboine and
Mt Forbs but much shorter and with half the
elevation gain on snow and ice.
A big peak with a remote mountain feel and a fairly burly
approach.
Cheers
Mark Stewart
I.F.M.G.A.
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