Great day out on Hector! Coverage on the glacier is still healthy with probes ranging from 140 to 240 with healthy crusts that provided some decent resistance when probing. Though there are some thin looking windstripped sections near the top that we roped up for. Snow in the alpine remained dry through our travels. moving towards treeline around 1400 surface snow becoming moist leading to fun corn skiing bellow the waterfall. Glad to have started early, but didn'tfeel as if we where cutting it close. With warmer days to come may be different.
Be aware that the bolted anchor that the hand line is attached to has had bolt come loose and fallen off leaving the chain hanging from one bolt. Not ideal for rapel. Fortunately there is another rappel station just up the snow slope on the face climbers right of the last bit to the summit. See 4th photo. It will require a 70m rope to rap off of though (shout out to the party from Jasper that summited with us that happened to bring one❤️)