[MCR] Athatbasca Conditions

Up the Silverhorn route today with one guest. As per Barry's post of yesterday very warm overnight and 4 degrees at 2:30am. Below 9000 feet there was little overnight recovery however above 9500 ft conditions improved dramatically (at least from and avalanche perspective) and the snowpack had refrozen over night. I estimate as much as 60cm of recent storm snow sits on top of the ice in the 10,000 to 11,000 elevation band on the Silverhorn. Also there are multiple breakable crusts layered in the snowpack making trail breaking a memorable experience and these crusts will provide some weak gliding surfaces on the next hot and sunny day....that would be a bad time to be on the north glacier approach.Descent via the AA Col at 10:30 am today seemed a bit too late and the snow pack was reacting to the intense solar radiation in between the cloudy periods getting soft. We did not observe any avalanches today.

 

James Blench

UIAGM

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