Athabasca Ramp & W/S Twins

ewanchyn , Saturday 11th May, 2024 2:10PM

-Approached via Snow Dome side on May 8. Thin coverage up the ramp and one fall knee deep into a crevasse just past the seracs. -Significant melting occurred between May 8 and our exit on May 10. The ski out down the ramp was convoluted and puckering. I expect it to continue to deteriorate over the next few days of warm temps. -Coverage on S Twin was relatively good considering this season; we did not have to ascend any bare ice. -Thin coverage on the icefields in general! We had probed 70-100cm at our camp on the N arm.

Sz 1 soft windslab peeled off with the plant & pull of an ice axe during the final bootpack to the summit ridge of W Twin. The leader took a tumble and fell into number two, who also tumbled and fell into number 3 (who self arrested). Number 3 had a minor cut from crampons, but otherwise no injuries. A few learnings from this incident: - Winds were howling all night and early morning. The summit fever, clear weather, and group think led to us conveniently ignoring this, as we hadn't seen any shooting cracks, drum like sounds, or natural activity from the wind. - Climbing on top of one another added a whole new risk, especially with 10 daggers on each foot. Although it's not always possible to avoid climbing on top of one another, in the future I would consider avoiding being stacked vertically at ridgetops where windslabs are most likely to be present. - We picked the narrower slope to climb and we also liked the clean runout. It also had less visible wind effect. Terrain management helped prevent a small incident from becoming a potentially larger one.