January 27-30, 2015, Reverse Wapta + Bow-Yoho
1/27/15
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After spring 1.5 all telemetry sites told of doom and gloom. Many of the mountain highways were closed and options were few. In times of doubt and high pressure we took the option of least resistance, the wapta icefields. We originally were just going to do the yoho traverse and spend some time around the presidents but the closure on 93N forced us into doing a reverse wapta as well. Windy and cloudy the first day up to the Scott Duncan. There is once again a door on the Scott Duncan outhouse but the wall is punched out 6 inches. Wind now also blows up the poop shoot causing the swirling of confetti within the outhouse.
No problems going from the Scott Duncan to the Bow. Coverage is decent on the glaciers ranging from 140-220cm depending on elevation. The high bench on the Balfor Glacier underneath the seracs is relatively free of sags. The low bench on the other hand still looks very broken right now.
For the Yoho portion of the trip we also found relatively good conditions on the glaciers. Setting a high traverse over to the Mt. Collie Col resulted in a sag free skin track. Only one of us summited Mt. Collie due to concerns about the heavily overhung cornice. We neglected to do our homework on the Des Poilus and I almost sent 15 feet to lake off the calving toe of the glacier. Instead of walking around we dropped a cornice onto the lake below and jumped off. Of note there was a large cave in the ice on lookers right of the toe.
On our last day we talked about doing one of the presidents but we decided the bergschrund likely was not yet well bridged. Instead we went up to have a look at the southwest face of Mt. McArthur but found the upper face to be fairly wind scoured. The slog out the yoho valley road was uneventful and took about 4.5 hours.
Snow Conditions: Creamy snow in sheltered locations above 2100. Below is a semi supportive crust until about 1600 or 1500m when it becomes breakable death crust. We found the best snow to be on SE and S aspects. Only avalanche activity we witnessed was a size 2 failing on basal facets off of Mt. Olive caused by a car sized cornice fall. We got dusted by the slide and it was a good reminder to stay diligent even during times of high stability.
No problems going from the Scott Duncan to the Bow. Coverage is decent on the glaciers ranging from 140-220cm depending on elevation. The high bench on the Balfor Glacier underneath the seracs is relatively free of sags. The low bench on the other hand still looks very broken right now.
For the Yoho portion of the trip we also found relatively good conditions on the glaciers. Setting a high traverse over to the Mt. Collie Col resulted in a sag free skin track. Only one of us summited Mt. Collie due to concerns about the heavily overhung cornice. We neglected to do our homework on the Des Poilus and I almost sent 15 feet to lake off the calving toe of the glacier. Instead of walking around we dropped a cornice onto the lake below and jumped off. Of note there was a large cave in the ice on lookers right of the toe.
On our last day we talked about doing one of the presidents but we decided the bergschrund likely was not yet well bridged. Instead we went up to have a look at the southwest face of Mt. McArthur but found the upper face to be fairly wind scoured. The slog out the yoho valley road was uneventful and took about 4.5 hours.
Snow Conditions: Creamy snow in sheltered locations above 2100. Below is a semi supportive crust until about 1600 or 1500m when it becomes breakable death crust. We found the best snow to be on SE and S aspects. Only avalanche activity we witnessed was a size 2 failing on basal facets off of Mt. Olive caused by a car sized cornice fall. We got dusted by the slide and it was a good reminder to stay diligent even during times of high stability.
Terrain Photos some might find useful of the Yoho.
Thanks for the report, somewhat discouraging to hear you are suffering low snow as we are here in the NW. Great however to see your good turns, and prove as ever, if you don't go you don't know.
Well there are extremely low snowpacks in a lot of places in the interior but I think the pass and the icefields parkway are average at treeline. I was more referring to the recent spell of rain that appeared to ruin the snow to mountain top but turns out things weren't that bad in the rockies (:
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