Hello
Just back from a trip to Great Cairn and Mount Sir Sanford. Summited the peak via the NW ridge route on Aug 25th. I decided to approach the Sir Sanford glacier via the looker's right side from the hut. It looked a little more manageable then the moraine approach below Ravelin. I wouldn't recommend this approach after doing it. The glacier and rock slabs made it a tricky one.
From the bivy described in Dave Jones Selkirk North guide book, it was a 14 hour round trip to the summit and back (to the bivy). The pocket glacier above the bivy is quickly receding making it tricky to negotiate this piece of terrain. Due to the rock slabs. We did how ever find a way through the slabs in the 4th class range.
The upper ridge above the Ravelin/Sir Sanford col was holding snow on the North aspect of the peak. From the storm we had on Aug 20-21. I had to pitch several sections that normally could be short roped. Which was again time consuming. The west face ledges were free of snow and easily short roped.
There is a large shrund open guarding the hour glass and upper NW face. I negotiated it via the climbers right side doing about a 30 m traverse pitch to line us up with the NW face. This pitch will not be around much longer because of glacial recession. There was no other option here. The only other way i could see this passable is a big snow year plugs this shrund. From the end belay of this pitch, it was about 80 meters of just off vertical alpine ice climbing in the grade 2 range ( 2 more pitches) to the saddle.
The upper NW face again was bare ice which i pitched for another 4-6 pitches to the summit ridge. The summit ridge has no crux cornice which is described in D.J. guide.
The Aug 20-21 storm deposited roughly 15 cm's of storm snow above 2700m. Which was up to 25 cm's on the lee side in loaded pockets. This storm snow has covered a lot of smaller crevasses. Big enough to fall into….. On descent, It happened. I did however have the rope on and a tight rope from my client. A ski pole was useful to probe for the remainder of the hidden gems.
There is a few Rappel options off the rock buttress to negotiate around the steep ice of the hour glass area. i used the one described in D.J.'s guide (directly off the buttress). Which is two 30m rappels. Noting, the first rappel getting to the top of the second rappel is a rope stretcher. One could easily rap off the ends here. So heads up.
Descended on day 3 via the Ravelin approach beside Sir Sanford glacier. The moraine that is pictured in the book is very aggressive but worked good. Considering all other options. This sort of moraine approach would not be possible in the rockies because of compact mud and dry gravel moraines typical of the rockies. Selkirk moraines are just more water saturated and mushy. Even on a year like this.
One other trip we did after some rest was up the Silver tip glacier to Silver tip peak on Snow and Ice. From Great Cairn hut I approached the looker's right side of the glacier. Again, this glacier has taken a beating by recession with many melting out large crevasses. Also to note is the large caverns forming from recession on the sides and underneath the glacier within a 100 meters or so of the glacier edge. This approach i found through the glacier will not exist in a few more years. The last option however would i did observe for future attempts on the Black Friar, other peaks and for ski tourers venturing in this area is to skirt the hillside high above the glacier (again looker's right side, below Azimuth notch). After summiting the peak via the N ridge, we descended the East ridge/south slopes back to Great Cairn. This would be the ideal way up for less experienced folks heading up to Silver tip Peak.
Of course now conditions are changing with the current weather.
Over and Out
Jonny Simms
ACMG/IFMGA Mountain Guide
1(604)815-9225
Golden, BC
