[MCR] Southern Great Divide Ski Traverse, Rockies, May 2-11, 2013

Just completed a 10 day ski traverse of the Southern portion of the Great Divide with Owen Short, Sara Mae, Jenn, Thomas, and Sepp!

We began up the Alexandra River valley May 2nd and exited via Bow Lake this morning, with ascents of Lyell, Mons, Barbette and Baker along the way.  With early starts we had very good spring travel conditions overall and were fortunate to have ten days of sunshine in a row!  A spectacular trip in some beautiful, remote country with nothing but bear tracks for company!

Early morning travel conditions on the glaciers were excellent with solid over night recoveries despite the warm temperatures (+7'C at Peyto hut at 0400 this morning). A supportive crust in open areas was still present down to Bow Lake at 0900 today.  Isothermal snow was found beneath this crust in thin alpine areas and below treeline with some wallowing near rocks and trees.  The canyon below Bow Hut required some wading to descend and soon will not be passable.

Avalanche activity revolved around daytime warming with low hazard in the mornings and considerable to high hazard by late morning or early afternoon especially on steep solar aspects.  We observed numerous wet slides to size 3 on solar aspects as well as many cornice failures as things heated during the days. Quite a few slabs of various depths have failed recently on depth hoar or other persistent weak layers on all aspects, but this activity seemed to have diminished over the past few days. 

For future reference if you are planning this trip...

We were able to ski 90% of the way up the Alexandra River on May 2nd.  We gained the Alexandra Glacier via the left side with some boot packing through the rock cliffs below the glacier toe to avoid the serac hazard on the right.  Crampons may become necessary to gain the glacier depending on how the glacier recedes, we were still able to ski onto the left side of the toe.

Many thanks to Larry Dolecki for the use of the Mons Hut as a great spot to overnight and to store our food cache.

The Mons rappels are well set up with a 25m and a 25-30m rappel off bolts equipped with cord and mallions. Bring replacement cord for these. A 60m lower worked well for the first 5 folks in the crew then two raps for the final person. While descending from the Mons rappel into Forbes Creek stay on skiers R of the creek once in the trees.

The climbers L (East) of the two possible Niverville Col options has a nicer lower angle entrance onto the Freshfields but both work.

Descending from tree line on skiers R of Lambe Creek has well spaced trees to use if required, and an easy log crossing of the Blaeberry River was present at the confluence with Lambe Creek this year.

Traversing along the bench to gain Parapet Creek was a bit of a grunt but certainly preferable to the Blaeberry River descent, a higher line may be easier.

Lower elevation trees in both the Blaeberry River and Forbes Creek areas provided wet but generally supportive travel on a more dense snow pack even late in the afternoon.

A really great trip to go and experience!

 

Cheers, Conrad Janzen
ACMG/IFMGA Mountain Guide
www.banffmountainguides.com

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