The Pat Sheehan

colawinter , Sunday 31st March, 2024 8:20PM

Travelled the Pat Sheehan over to Castleguard and out on the Saskatchewan Glacier. Saturday morning was warm and the sun was packing a punch. On solar aspects the top 1-2cm of surface snow was getting heavy and moist around 11am up to 2300m. Up on the glacier the winds kept the snow cold and there was up to 30cm of recent soft snow which made for slow trail breaking. By the afternoon the clouds rolled in with winds and a little precip. Camped out on the castleguard meadows and the night was clear, cold and calm. Sunday morning brought blue skies and light winds. We travelled around to Castleguard mountain on the glacier behind from the meadows. It shouldn’t be a surprise with such a low snow year that the glacier was far more broken than in satellite imagery and made for trickier travel. By the time we approached Castleguard the winds were in the moderate to strong and the clouds descended. The wind made trail breaking even slower with the surface snow becoming slabbier and wind affected. Skied out on the Saskatchewan glacier which was a breeze compared to other options this year. No significant avalanches observed other than a less than size 1 thin wind slab on Castleguard and some serac fall off Alexandra glaciers. Overall the Pat Sheehan is in good condition albeit the slopes down towards the Castleguard meadows were super thin and crusty so try and head further south towards Terrace Mountain to exit the bench on mellower slopes.