Wapta

nickkeenan , Monday 17th February, 2025 9:15PM

3 days on the Wapta starting at Bow lake. Extremely windy on Sat above Bow Hut, not the best place to find some Pow turns with widespread wind affect on the glacier. Coverage on the glaciers was generally quite good. Only place we measured height of snow was on vulture Glacier with a 200cm snowpack. Travel was reasonably slow with the 25-30cms of consolidated snow providing too much resistance to ski down the low angle glaciers. Expect to be walking downhill as well as uphill. 1 other party completed same time as us but started at Peyto lake, they reported snow coverage was extremely thin/ non existant on the Peyto approach with minimal snow until the glacier. Would recommend starting at Bow Lake until we get more snow. Exit via Sherbrooke Creek was fine, no issues with coverage there. See snowpack section for more specific details on snow coverage.

Wapta Icefield - very wind affected especially above Bow Hut, crusty for the most part. Further towards Mr Gorden it's less wind affected with around 5cm ski pen. Vulture Glacier - wind affected at the top of the glacier with a breakable crust, 25cm consolidated snow on top of a very hard crust around 5cms thick for the rest of the glacier. This was the only place we measured snowpack, it was 200cm mid glacier. Balfour Col - variable snow conditions. Crusty in many areas, sometimes breakable, sometimes not. In sheltered areas with no crust, conditions where similar to vulture glacier. Waputik Icefield - 25-30cms of soft consolidated snow. Ski pen 5-10cms. Snowpack felt much more consolidated here and couldn't feel the crust 30cms down. We didn't probe, so that's not to say it isn't there just buried deeper, but it was a noticeable difference in Yoho vs Banff.