I guided and attempt on Asteroid Alley yesterday, April 15th. The snow coach road is in the process of being plowed so you have to park at the lower lot. We took snowshoes and put them on at the snow coach transfer station. I would say that they are an aid above there right now, but you do have to step on some rock. It is possible to traverse the AA Glacier directly to the route (something that we did on the way out, but not on the way in). It felt like -20 C as we geared up below the route and it was winter up there all day long.
A hasty pit revealed a concerning planar shear down 1 meter so we played the far left edge of the approach slope (climber's left edge) staying close to rock and out of the open and placing gear the whole way. Boot top to mid shin step kicking ate up a lot of time.
Once into the branch of Asteroid we climbed one full 60 meter pitch of grovelly mixed to the base of the crux chimney. Digging down through the winter snow on this pitch often yielded good 10 - 16 cm ice screws.
The crux chimney is classic and holding far less snow/mushrooms than I'd expected (even less after our passage). Come the 45 meter mark it had taken all 10 of my screws, and one abalakov built as protection (if I went back today I think that I'd take 16 screws including 4 x 10cm and 4 x 13 cm, but I'm a cautious old dog). Interesting to see numerous screw holes perfectly preserved from last autumn's ascents. I anchored at the 'keyhole' and when my guest arrived it was 7:30 pm and time to head down. If I recall right from my previous ascent of the route 10? years ago there is about another 30 meters of ice? then the final rock pitch to the ridge (a number of parties, my previous one included, have choose to rappel from the top of the ice).
We made 5 rappels, the bottom 3 from both sides of the gully (2 in situ anchors), and then down climbed/bumslid the lower slopes. Having gained some confidence, and lost a lot of time, in the snow on the way up we choose to descend fall line from the lower rocks.
A nice walk back to the car via the near full moon. A twenty three and a half hour day by the time we got back to Canmore.
Happy trails,
Barry Blanchard
Mountain Guide
www.barryblanchard.ca
www.yamnuska.com
ps we could see some chromey thin looking ice rolling over the top of the Shooting Gallery crux, but never were able to see the bottom of that pitch.
