[MCR] Rockies: Robson area

Tom Harding, Ian Jackson and I spent the weekend camped at Rearguard Meadows in the Robson area. We climbed The Helmet via the Berg Glacier on Saturday and Mt Resplendent normal route today.

We went on this trip with a healthy dose of skepticism regarding snow quality but overall we found good summer conditions. Midnight starts gave us frozen snow with minimal boot penetration. In the mornings we had very cold conditions over 3000 m, with close to -10 temperatures at about 8 AM when we summited Helmet and Resplendent. That quickly changed on the descents where we saw moist snow and crusts breaking down rapidly by mid-morning.

Peak by peak conditions:

Helmet - Very crevassed and a few key bridges may not hold out for much longer. Summit slopes are ice. The bergschrunds on the Dome (south) side are large.

Resplendent - the large crevasse below the Mousetrap has a good bridge on climbers left or you can walk on the size 3 icefall debris that plugs it. A bit of thin snow over ice on the final summit slope.

Robson  - N Face is ice. Fuhrer Ridge seems dry with not much ice visible. Kain route looks like mid summer: the right side of the Kain Face is ice, centre and left is snow, schrund is large, The Roof looks snowy. The Mousetrap looks like the Khumbu without the ladders.

Whitehorn: the approach glaciers to get to the north side are very crevassed already.

Mark Klassen

Mountain Guide

Ian Jackson

Apprentice Guide

Whitehorn approach

 

Helmet crevasses

 

Robson N Face

 

Robson Fuhrer

 

Mousetrap

 

Roof

 

Kain Face

 

49. 50.

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