I guided an ascent of Curtain Call yesterday, Feb 6th. The snowpack below the
climb consists of a 10 cm eggshell sitting on 20 cms of structureless facets,
horrid stuff, but easy to walk through. We had snow shoes and didn't really
need them. The upper pillar of the climb fell off at some point and scoured the
slopes below for several hundred meters. The slide surface makes for good
cramponing once you get to it.
The climb is in similar shape to three? years ago with crux being a half metre
roof on the second pitch. The roof is the truncated edge of the collapsed
pillar out of which a new pillar has formed. Narrow and nervous and airy,
exciting climbing.
Today, Jan 7th, I guided an ascent of Teardrop (the Upper Weeping Wall). We
intended to climb Snivelling Gully as our approach, but the first pitch looked
undermined by water so we did a pitch of Weeping Wall Left Hand and then
traversed into Snivelling Gully. This worked well. We then avoided the wet gut
of Snivelling Gully and climbed ice on the climber's left flank to gain the
last pitch, which is well formed. Teardrop is big and on the easy side of
normal. The crux last pitch climbs grade 5ish ice without having to surmount
any leviathan ice petals that some years make this pitch more difficult.
Overall both climbs, Curtain Call and Teardrop, yielded confidence inspiring
screws 8 times out of 10.
Happy trails,
Barry Blanchard
Mountain Guide
www.barryblanchard.ca
www.yamnuska.com
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