I guided an ascent of the North Ridge of Mt Athabasca with two guests via an
approach on the lower North Athabasca Glacier "Ice Tongue" yesterday, July
12th. We accessed the ridge by climbing a couloir that gains the ridge just
below that crux rock step (note that we didn't climb from the
Boundary/Athabasca Col). The couloir that we climbed accommodated good step
kicking with a bit of ice to finish. Once on the east side of the ridge the
snow went from sponge to wet oatmeal and we started several wet snotty
avalanches that flowed from our footsteps to slosh off down mountain entraining
more wet mushy oatmeal en route. All of the rock was dry from the crux up. I
incorporated two snow stakes in my last anchor on the summit ridge line, the
only place that I used the two pickets that we were carrying. Direct sun was on
the AA Col descent at 4 pm so we opted to go down the Ramp route. Knee deep
postholing, at that time of day, from the base of the Silverhorn Ridge to the
far end of the ramp.
Spooky walking through the killing fields of serac debris from the monster that
ran down the north glacier in late May/early June sometime and overran the
creek as per one of Peter Amann's posts from around that time. Note that one
third of the serac/glacier pictured below caused that avalanche (the biggest
I've ever seen in 30 plus years of climbing and guiding on Athabasca) and that
there are still two thirds hanging up there and, in my estimation, the
remainder has slipped about 10 meters downhill in the last month. I think there
may be some more catastrophic failures, possibly two, from this feature; or, as
can be hoped, it will go in smaller events over time. I'm spooked by this
feature.
We left the car at 03:15 (+ 8 C on the car thermometer) and got back to it at
18:30.
Happy trails,
none the less
Barry Blanchard
Mountain Guide
www.barryblanchard.ca
www.yamnuska.com
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