[MCR] South Coast, Spearhead Range, Mt. Pattison

Guided a trip to Mt. Pattison today.

 

It was sunny with lots of high cloud and a west wind. Temps never got too high. Nothing more than a few warmed ice chips fell off the slopes.

 

We skied up the climbers L on the Decker Glacier. Had to wind a bit about through the crevasses but there was plenty of fill and bridging with 2.4m average depth on the ice. Coming back we crossed over the top of the Trorrey Gl, same story here, but the ice is now a bit more broken than usual.

 

Dug a test pit on the NW face of Pattison just below the summit at 2400m and found the Nov 25 ice crust 50cm from the surface.  A hard but clean compression test popped the column out just under this crust - in 1 Finger density snow which overlies Pencil hard snow. Above the crust was 1Finger to 4 Finger density snow that reacted to moderate compression but broke irregularly.

 

Saw 1 recent natural avalanche. A Sz 2.5 cornice/slab that came off Decker’s north side (between the 9^th Hole and the Finger Chutes, 2400m). The cornice drop pulled a 30m by 50cm deep slab.

 

All the warm alpine temps have made skinning up easy, but has not done a great service for the downhill part. Even just a little new snow would make things better.  

 

Dave Sarkany

SG

 

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