Athabasca Glacier Approach

jackvanlierop3807 , Monday 29th April, 2024 8:20PM

Made it up the Athabasca Glacier on Friday. We chose the left side up the first two tiers and then the right side ramp for the last tier. On the way down the next day we skied down the climbers right side the whole way down with moderate difficulty negotiating the upper tier as our track had filled in. HS ranged from 80cm lower on the Athabasca to 3m+ in the middle and upper tiers with at least 5m on the Columbia. HS was especially variable through the lower two tiers with questionable bridges. There was average of 20cm HN24 on Saturday at 18:00 at 2900m which reduced to an average of 10cm by the bottom tier of the Athabasca. We saw lots of sluffing both days out of extreme alpine terrain on all aspects, as well as ski cutting multiple size one loose wet avalanches on the steep solar slope below the seracs on Snowdome @2350m while exiting.