Hey all,
Better late than never... But in addition to Brad Whites photos of Mount Fay from late last week, thought I'd throw in our observations of just the conditions as well. We spent the 10th-12th at the at the Neil Colgan hut Climbing both Mount Little and the West Ridge of Fay while we were there. We came up the Perren route on the 10th, dry climbing the whole way. Runoff was available in more than a few places to refill the water bottles if needed. The glacier travel to the hut was all on snow right from the toe, but with numerous thin spots, soft snow, and poorly bridged (but generally smaller) crevasses to deal with on the way to the hut.
Weather on the 10th and 11th remained pretty unsettled and seemed like early starts to beat the afternoon thunderstorms was key. As well as to take advantage of any overnight freezing action. For whatever reason we watched the storms rage around us both days but we lucked out with mostly clear skies locally around the hut and Mount Fay. Climbed Mount Little the morning of the 11th with a moderate freeze still giving us reasonable travel both up and down.
The 12th we climbed the West Ridge of Fay in pretty well perfect conditions, we got easily the best freeze i've seen all summer and a beautiful clear morning for the ascent. We chose to access the ridge by climbing the rightmost snow/and ice face. Crossing the bergschrund was a walk, and still pretty well filled in. Once on the face and about 30m up, you're able to dig to ice for anchors if you need them which seemed more useful for us on the descent. We got supportive step kicking in the snow all the way to the ridge from there. The uber freeze lasted most of the day and was keeping rockfall almost totally at bay for us which was comforting. The ridge was dry with good travel right up to the summit and moving along the summit ridge was quick as well. Descended from the summit back down the same way and then back down the Perren to the lake. After having seen the size of the cornices still hanging around on the other routes up there, as well as all the stress fractures on the back of them, not sure I'd be all that comfortable being on many of the other routes up there right now. All in all though a really, really, good day in the hills.
Was also up on Castle Mountain yesterday doing the Goat Plateau traverse with some folks. Thought if anybody was heading up there might be worth knowing you can still get water from the bottom of the descent gully just left of Bass Buttress and above the hut.
Have fun out there!
Mike.
Mike Trehearne
ARG/AAG/ASG
www.yamnuska.com
m_trehearne@xxxxxxxxxxx