Climbed the Kain route on Bugaboo Spire with Claire on Tuesday and we were blessed with a beautiful July day and the mountain all to ourselves.
Despite the amount of snow for this time of year the route was in good shape and it was possible to be on rock for most of the ascent. The only place that this was not possible was the 100m or so leading up to the first 5.4 step. We left crampons at the col but appreciated having an ice axe for this section and opted to rap this part rather than down climb as the snow had really softened up by midday.
The bergshrund on the BS col is just starting to appear on the climbers right but is easily avoidable at the moment.
The slope below the SE face of Bugaboo Spire (climbers right of the BS col) that often produces large slab avalanches at this time of year has not yet released and thus it would be prudent to avoid exposure to this feature.
Sunny aspects in the Crescent basin looked nice and dry. Snowpatch also looked good but the summit ridge still has snow on it. The north side of Pigeon and the Howsers were still looking very wintry.
The campsite at Applebee was still under quite a lot of snow.
The hut has running water but no electric although the ACC staff are working really hard to rectify this.
The metal bridge below the hut is missing so care should be taken crossing the snow bridges over the creek as they getting pretty thin now.
We came across quite a lot of fresh bear scat near the parking lot on the walk in on Monday.
Cheers,
Steve Blagbrough.
ACMG/BMG
Yamnuska Mountain Adventures.