Quick report
With the usual caveat that this is an especially fast-changing time of the season … For pictures, tracklog, and color commentary, see my Strava activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/14355367586 Overall, Sunday’s ~4” snowstorm seems to have been mainly blown off, not blown in, which alas is typical for this time of year when combined high winds and bare fetch zones. Some bright-white patches were evident, but not many. So significant deterioration everywhere in the snowpack on Thursday since I was last there the prior Friday on the same tour (sans the now-gone Sherb). Summit Snowfields = Still in great shape, but sharks emerging everywhere. Max vert on skier’s left dogleg was ~630’ vert (and a little bit less on skier’s right), so about the same as is more typical for mid-May. Center w/o doglegs was ~450’. A high traverse across East Snowfield still connects entirely on-snow with SE Snowfield but was about to disappear. Portages in the near future will be trivial though. Bowl = Right Gully still had some good skiing above the lowest rock buttress, but the connection to the main part of the Bowl is already tenuous. Lip is riddled with cracks / crevasses / moulins / moats. Chute and LG are excellent. Hillman’s & neighbors = HH skier’s left is excellent, although showing some signs of skier traffic. The high traverse into skier’s right still connected, although barely. Skier’s right from there was wonderfully smooth. Looking up at skier’s right, and also looking over later from LH, I think all of skier’s right is nice and wide, although I’m not absolutely sure. LH summer route = The prior Friday, the steep snow traverse was entirely untrenched. This time was far easier since I detected at least two sets of tracks since last Friday. Then higher up, above treeline, I met two hikers, and sure enough, they had ascended the summer route earlier in the day. So between our five sets of tracks now, that traverse should be much easier. Although I still wouldn’t want to be there with firm snow: that pitch is deceptively short, since its exposure is potentially deadly.