Spent a gorgeous day on the East Ridge of Temple yesterday. Sharing the route with the excellent company of Allen from Canmore and Barry.
The bottom half of the route is all dry.
There are some snow patches to cross on the way to the black towers. The saturation level of the snow at this elevation made the surface wet, yet steps set up nicely. Crampons here increased security, snow patch edges are slick ice and thinning out rapidly. We traveled the moat between the snow and rock for 50m to get to the pinnacle and shinny rap ring bolts that mark the start of the black tower exit gulley.
Plenty of places to fill water on the traverse.
The black tower pitches have a few wet spots, an ice axe came in handy to negotiate some moves around rotten snow and down sloping slippy slab.
As usual the ledges are riddled with plenty of pebbles, perched rocks and seeping gulleys. We witnessed one gulley shed some rock debris to the right of the climbing line.
On the glacier there was a foot pen of about 30cm on average and well resistant snow below. The crevasse/bergshrund on route is not sagging where normally traveled, but is well defined to the right. Although foot penatration was mostly good, on the apex of the ridge there is ice. Ice screws came in handy to protect a 10m stretch.
Cornices have ripped away and that was nice to see.
The descent is in good shape, scree a plenty.
A classic Rockies adventure!!
Merrie-Beth Board
Assistant Guide
Barry Blanchard
UIAGM/IFMGA Mountain Guide
