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Fair and variable winter conditions persist on Mt
Robson's Kain Face route.
On the night of Aug 23rd we received very heavy rain fall
for 8 hours, on the 24th we received light rain for half the day with strong SW
winds.
On the afternoon of the 24th the weather cleared and
from the entrance of the Mouse Trap we were able to observe Robson's
NE aspects the Kain Face and summit.
The storm had deposited 30 - 50cm of new snow on the upper
mountain, wet snow up to 11 000 ft.
There was a natural avalanche cycle at ridge top and
below on snow loaded NE slopes.
Numerous size 2 slab avalanches had pulled out on convex
rolls between 8000 and 11 000 ft.
The crowns were estimated to be 40 - 80 cm deep.
The warm SW flow provided little overnight freezing
with low temps of 4 degrees at 8000 ft.
The fern line started at 8000 ft on the Robson
glacier, snow travel was ok in the morning but poor in the
afternoon
with many weak rain saturated snow bridges hiding
big crevasses.
There were many big winter cornices along most of the ridge
tops and the ice falls were very active with recent ice debris at the base.
The Kain Face was snow loaded top to bottom but mostly
cornice free, the shrund was open and lightly covered over with the recent
storm snow.
The weather remained clear and despite the
difficult traveling conditions and snowpack hazards on the 25 and 26
two climbing parties made camp on the Dome.
On the 27th one party managed to summit Mt Robson via the Kain
Face at 2:00 in the afternoon.
These conditions will improve dramatically with prolonged
freezing temps.
Cheers.
Mark Stewart
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