I guided an ascent of the South ridge of Mt Edith on May 31st. Some snow
patches to walk around in the avalanche path that is the last leg of the
approach. The route is in mixed condition right now, we had light crampons and
an ice hammer each and used them for the first two ropelengths. The first crux,
right off of the first belay, was completely buried in snow; we only found one
of the fixed anchors exposed. Good, fun low end mixed climbing given a freeze.
The descent chimney was choked with snow mushrooms and we had to clear some to
rappel.
May 31st we climbed the SE ridge of Mt Wilcox which is holding a lot of snow
and is slow because of that. We used crampons for half of the ascent. Big trick
getting to the ridge right now is to follow the wind blown, and dry, ridge that
you find by following trails up the climber's left side of the big creek that
runs through the Columbia Icefields Campground (it would be quite difficult to
get to Wilcox Pass right now given the snow cover).
June 1st we attempted the North Face Bypass on Mt Athabasca. Decent travel as
reported in Peter Amann's post of yesterday. The serac collapse that swept the
glacier all the way down to the low creek ,and beyond, is impressive. The
biggest that I can remember seeing there, and there is still about 2/3rds of
the same serac poised, got me thinking that I may favour the AA Col route this
season as a normal route. We found a freshie wind slab at the bergschrund, and
more freshie slabs on the route. A hand shear revealed a moderate to hard clean
planar shear down 25 cms, then a second clean planar shear down 10 cms deeper
against the permanent ice face. Having short roped to that point we switched to
belaying for one more ropelength but worsening weather sent us packing and we
retreated 3 ropelengths and ran away. We caused two eggshell crevasse bridges
to fail, and fall in -one at the bergshrund, and a second along the edge of the
N ridge as we descended the glacier there.
Happy trails,
Barry Blanchard
Mountain Guide
www.barryblanchard.ca
www.yamnuska.com
First pitch SE ridge Mt Edith, May 30th
Descent chimney Mt Edith, May 30th
Mt Athabasca May 31st _______________________________________________
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