[MCR] Rockies, exit from Peyto Hut

Subject: [MCR] Rockies, exit from Peyto Hut
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:51:43 -0600
My fellow Mountain Guides, Steve Blagbrough and Greg Yavorsky, and I guided an ice-walk from Bow Hut to Peyto Hut and out Peyto Lake, August 27-29. Conditions and weather were stellar, as reported elsewhere. Of note is that the bridge over the creek that drains the Peyto Glacier is still washed out with no word of being replaced. This creates new challenges for exiting this valley. We constructed a log bridge to cross the creek that drains Caldron Lake (this creek is visible on as a looker's left hand branch in the photo below). The valley bottom creek (the main one) was forded by finding a place where the creek was divided into 2 channels (before the treed hill/ constriction in the the picture below). We left our boots on and crossed in "centipede" chains of 5 with a Mountain Guide breaking the flow at the head. Had we known we would be leaving our boots on we would have crossed the upper -Caldron Lake- creek with them on too.

Also of note, and visible in the second photo below, is that the lake at the end of the Peyto Glacier has increased in size and grown a long finger lake up the inside of it's west lateral moraine. That moraine has be considerably undermined by water and has several large collapses that we chose to cross above, up glacier.

Happy trails,

Barry Blanchard
Mountain Guide
www.barryblanchard.ca
www.yamnuska.com

JPEG image


The Caldron Lake creek on the left and Peyto Glacier creek on the valley bottom

JPEG image


Peyto Glacier with it's pro-glacial lake, and new finger lake, just visible.
_______________________________________________
These observations and opinions are those of the person who submitted them. The 
ACMG and its members take no responsibility for errors, omissions, or lapses in 
continuity. Conditions differ greatly over time and space due to the variable 
nature of mountain weather and terrain. Application of this information 
provides no guarantee of increased safety. Do not use the Mountain Conditions 
Report as the sole factor in planning trips or making decisions in the field.
Please check out http://acmg.ca/mcr for more information.