Bridge River Ice Climb Near Miss

vincent.lapointe.d , Monday 11th March, 2024 9:45AM

Size 2+/3 wet loose overshot our party of 3 tucked against the rock on The Theft WI6+/M6 saturday in the Bridge. The avi flowed for 20-30sec coming as close a 5m to the 2 climbers at the P1 belay but mostly falling to the climber's right. One climber received a branch to the buttocks with minor bruising/abrasion. Mistake was made in relying on word of mouth and visual inspection of the climb and not reviewing a topographic map which showed the steep terrain above. Initially, we considered the objective a conservative, low avi risk climb on such a high risk day (the overhead seemed flat with dense trees). A thermometer could have also been carried as the various weather models we'd checked called for a high of 4°, which we felt was already flirting with being too hot to climb dagger ice, yet we felt we could mostly avoid the firing zone. Upon reviewing the nearby Avalanche Canada tower the temps had actually risen to 9° when the avalanche released. Upon returning to the car, we also witnessed another slide over The Gift (a climb just a couple 100 meters to the East on the same aspect which had hit another party the day prior).