[MCR] Mount Huber, Lake O'Hara

I was up on Huber today with two folks.

The Huber Ledges were very verglased this morning, which slowed the pace down considerably. I had to do plenty of chipping holds clean on the pitched climbing to make it doable for my two partners. 2-5cm of new snow on the ledges the higher you went, until you hit the glacier.

Due to the slower climbing lower down, we didn't make it to the final NE face until 10am-ish. There, I found 20-60cm thick isolated soft slabs overlying a supportive 5cm crust low on the face. Where the angle steepened right below the summit ridge, the supportive crust was gone, with complete isothermal mush under the slab. We turned around 60m below the summit. It didn't feel good reaching into mush and squeezing water out of a handful...

The snow on the Huber Ledges was slowly melting when we descended, so I'd expect there will be verglas there tomorrow morning. Enjoy!

Chris Gooliaff

ACMG Asst Alpine, Asst Ski

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