|
Made an attempt on the Andromeda Strain yesterday, March 10th. Quite cold in the wee hours, 4 am, - 18? A winter's day up there: cold dry snow, numb fingers. We did the approach in boot soles and it took about four hours to get up below the route. Snowshoes may have been an asset once you get to the glacial areas, but you'd have to carry them for at least half of the time.
Deep snow to trench up getting off of the glacier and onto the ice border above the bergschrund (no problem getting over the schrund as it is well filled in). That 30 meters of border ice was the last ice that we saw for the 3 pitches that we climbed. Its a bummer for me to think back to the three times that I ascended the lower half of the route in 1983 (attempts and, eventual, first ascent of the route) and remember the ice slopes and gullys that were there at that time. And there was ice there on my one return to the route in 2006. Several hot summers have melted all of that ice away now. Yesterday we had snow, some supportive, some unsupportive, over dirty loose rock and it was far from the quality climbing experience that it use to be. Looked like another 3-4 ropelengths of the same to get to the steeper climbing of the Direct, or classic traverse out right. We bailed.
I think that the route may be like what I hear the Eiger to be like now -best in a normal winter ie: normal amounts of snowfall unlike the draught that we're in, when accumulated and compressed snow can fill in where the ice use to be ... still can't get ice screws into that snow though.
Winds picked up to moderate as we walked away at 4 pm and the sky was going to overcast, lots of snow blowing around.
Happy trails, Barry Blanchard Mountain Guide www.barryblanchard.ca
|