Banff

Saw large avalanche debris in upper part of Professor Falls from highway yesterday. Thought we would do a quick lap of the first couple of pitches very early this AM (still below freezing). We ran into very large blocks of avalanche debris piled up well before we got to the base of the climb. Pitch one has only about the top 1/4 left above the debris. The anchors at the top of the pitch were well buried. The anchors at the top of the second pitch are still available and un-damaged.

**Road through the golf course to the fork was easy to bike but was a mix of clear asphalt, icy surface, or ploughed snow scraped almost clear. Beyond the fork is ice covered with new snow. Today was reasonable traction. **First three pitches were great condition and dry. Fourth pitch had an easily avoidable wet streak. Higher pitches in good shape with only one pitch being somewhat wet. **There was around 10cm of recent snow. It worked nice for catching falling ice between pitches but also factored into our consideration of avi risk. While winds were almost calm and we observed no transport of snow, it could become a factor once winds start moving the new snow around. The morning was sunny becoming mostly cloudy in the afternoon. During the sunny part, my partner noted some pinwheeling on a sunny aspect on climbers right of the drainage. Ultimately despite what was probably acceptable snow conditions, we chose to skip the exposed walk to the final pitch. **There were 4 rope teams on the route, and all arrived at the base within a short time span. A soloist beat us there and made short work of the whole route. It was somewhat social climbing and it was nice to see the level of cooperation and accommodation between all. To speed things up a little, after the first pitch myself and partner climbed the right side of pitches 2 to 4. Traffic favoured the left side of these pitches but the right sides climbed and protected well. **A couple bolted anchors were getting hard to find under snow or ice. Here is a hint list for which side to look. P1 left. P2 left (dual stations). P3 (the W3 sometimes linked with P2) left. P4 right (getting covered with ice). P5 (short step leading to a short walk. Next two steps have anchors on the right. We descended from here so cant say definitively which side for the short step but look on the right after the final pitch.

Mainly cloudy skies today with S-1 snowfall throughout the AM, calm winds. 5cm of new snow (at noon) and 15cm of wind blown snow sits over a sun crust. Overall, the ice climbed well with small sections that had a breakable shell. Caution open water on approach gully and in thinner sections of the climb, both were avoidable.

Ice climbed moderate right flows of Bear Spirit that are in. Left flow is not dropping down yet and not in. Not much snow on slopes above approach route, slopes of concern seemed below threshold.

2cm new snow, low wind down low, less than 15cm of snow on the ground and not much in the slopes and cliff bands above on approach. Ice conditions decent on the right side WI3 Bear Spirit flows, with a thin top out. Ice conditions poor on left WI4 flow, pillar not even touching down fully yet. Ice conditions on approach step to main flow areas were thin. River crossings on approach was pretty straightforward.

**Approach. Road is mostly bare asphalt to the fork then mostly snow or ice after the right turn. Mostly packed and rideable in the morning but some sections got boggy after the day warmed up. Beyond the kiosk was a mix of bare trail and ice. Studded tyres to ride or micro spikes to walk would be nice. **P1 has good ice, good pro, nice swings. A wee bit drippy on one line. P2 got brittle but dry on the left line. Wetter over right. P3 mostly dry. P4 had a featured line middle right with good pro. The party behind us chose the left line. My right side line had a little bit of wet, left looked dry but less featured. The small step above P4 was easy but wet. From there we walked up higher. The little steps you normally go up are fully buried in avi debris. Although there is no sign of avi debris at the top of P4 there is a lot of debris on the short walk above it. The debris leads you to what is looking like a very much thinner than usual step. Besides the thin step it looked like huge avi debris above with a wall over 2m of avi debris. We turned back halfway up the avi debris. This huge amount of debris was not from this week but probably bigger than class 3 and from the last big avi cycle.

Climbed Spray River Falls today and chose it because it faces north and the day was forecast to be cool and cloudy. Approach was frozen trail and when we neared the climb there was a few cm of dry snow on the crust. Large piles of avalanche debris in the gully leading to the climb which came from old, wet avalanches off the lookers right side gully walls. Impressive piles. The sun came out for a few minutes and we got a bit gripped. It was hot and the route does get sun on the lookers right side this time of year. Fortunately the clouds returned and the place stayed cold for the rest of the day. Ice quality was excellent. Steep grade 5 on the last (third) pitch.

Adventure cragging. **Catwalk is closed owing to damaged support allowing catwalk to droop and potentially collapse. Walking on the outside of the catwalk fence a few metres before following the hillside down to creek level, then up the creek to the base area. Part of the ice was collapsing and is likely to get worse this week as temps rise. Water depth was less than boot top but could get deeper if more ice disappears. **We started with an easy line on the right side slabs. We used a rap anchor located by crawling under a large tree. NB this large tree is the old anchor tree with the big chain. **We then lead up the main falls starting below Prism falls, climbing on petals that made finding screws hard and of questionable reliability. A leftward traverse on what I dubbed the "balcony" was pretty easy and offered some better quality screw placements, gaining the main falls. I had to clear lots of snow to get to ice, easily a foot deep. Main falls were fun highly featured climbing, lots of mushrooms and petals. There is a sizeable open hole with high flow behind it and a thin shell to be very careful of. I used much better ice on the left to get around it before getting to poor quality ice for the top out. I cut a hard right and belayed on some great quality ice for the anchor, along the rock wall. **The deep freeze resulted in a high collapse rate on the big pillars. Many snapped and fell but there has been some regrowth. Just a reminder that climbers access in this area is contingent on not mixed climbing or drytooling on the wall behind the pillars. This wall is home to many species of lichens and algae, some of which are endangered/protected. As such Parks requires we don't climb on that rock. This is old news as listed in both the old JoJo guidebook and reproduced in the I&M app.

**Did a wee bit of saw work on the approach to avoid a limbo move. **Ice is a big tube and as you reach the top you can see down into the tube through a couple holes. Quite a cavern in there. **Front of the tube is wet and building outwards but needs to thicken a bit. **Despite the tube being thinner as you get higher, thicker ice can be had to the sides, even taking 16's in spots. Some mushroomy climbing down low, delicate thin ice far left. **The climb does not yet extend as far left or right, over the rock as it typically bulks out to do. **Bolted anchor on the right is good although I understand there is only a single bolt on the left. A second bolt would be handy for the left side. **As you step up the narrow slope from the belay, watch for a hole where you want to put your left foot. There is a hole so keep right. To help maybe heal the hole we tried sticking chunks of ice into it so splashing water might freeze it up. No idea if it will work because I'm a climber, not a farmer. Try to not be a swimmer even if its only ankle deep.

Got to the base of the climb around 1pm and waited for the sun to go over the mountains. The sun was not hitting the approach slopes much that day (except for maybe a minute as we neared the base of the climb). Approach slopes felt stable but definitely enough snow to trigger a large slab avalanche. Evidence of old avalanche debris at the base of the climb, above the first pitch and on the slopes above the climb. When rappelling down the first pitch from the trees, I was punching through almost hip deep snow. Moderate winds blowing throughout the day and light snow drifts coming down the rocky outcrops on the edge of the falls. The temperature was near or above 0 deg. C. The ice itself felt good. Found quite a few hooks but there was quite a bit of dinner plating. Had a clean the surface of the ice but found good ice after cleaning. Did not lead the crux pitch but partner felt there was quite a bit of dinner plating on that section. On the crux, we seemed to be left of what seemed to be the "normal" line people have been climbing. You can find a dry line on the top out pitch but a portion of it is wet. When rappelling into the cave, be aware of hanging ice dagger on climbers left of the cave. Someone built a good no-thread inside the cave. My intuition is telling me there is still a lot of snow in the avalanche chutes above the climb but I am no avalanche expert.

Climbed Spray River Falls, good travel up the drainage on avalanche debris releasing from south/south-east facing rock on previous days. Strong melt-freeze cycle created planar ice and interesting conditions (thin brittle skin on some areas). Sun only affected the drainage and climb for a short time in the morning and had firmed up again by the time we descended (around 3:30pm).

Approach: Good bootpack and the ice steps after the cave are fairly easily negotiated. Only thing some may be unaware of is that the 1a is closed so you cant get to the Fireside parking lot. Instead use the pull off at the end of the off ramp. You can shorten the approach a couple minutes by watching for a well tramped track going uphill just a few metres after the gate which cuts out the Fireside parking. Ice: Right pillar looked to have a good line on the right but the party there seemed to have their rope freeze in occasionally. The wet was actually falling on the left side of that pillar though. The left pillar had a lot of mass but only connected for about half of its girth. It looked to have nice hooking above the thinner section. On the far right side the shorter flow had a couple steep lines and nice climbing although the steepest lines would be tricky to protect given running water was visible through some clear ice. Further right protected nice with 13 and 16's and it was all dry on this flow. A couple of the mixed lines got attention although the right of these had a strenuous transition from the last bolt to ice. Snow: Mostly sheltered snow around here and much of it likely from the last storm. Didn't notice any layers or crusts beside the approach although in the final gully it was fairly sugary. Coming up the creek on the east side away from the approach trail; there were old point releases visible and since covered in newer snow. There were also more recent small pinwheel tracks on the sunny slopes.

Just an observation from the highway and mostly relevant to ice climbers heading to routes along the NE side of Rundle. e.g. The Professor Falls, Sacre Bleu, etc. Viewed from west of Banff, the long slopes on the SW side of Rundle seem to have been scoured clean of a lot of the storm snow. Its new address looks to be the bowls and gullies on the NE side of Rundle. You may not be able to see all thats above you from climbs on that side but be aware there certainly are accumulations up there. Evaluate accordingly. Worth noting that some similar aspects were also scoured clean further east beyond Canmore such as Pigeon and Grotto Mtns. Stability of those recently loaded gullies is unknown from a car doing 90kmh.

It was a busy day on Professor Falls. Temperatures were mild, sky was broken, wind was light from the west, no new snow overnight. There is minimal snow on the route or in the bowl directly above the last pitch (see first photo) however we could not see what would be above that.

We walked around the first pitch which looked soft but wet. Second pitch had some thin spots. Third pitch was decent but wet. After the walk the ice was reasonable and we ended up to the left of the crux pitch. From below it had looked a little mushroomy but would probably go. At the belay I decided I wasn't willing to have an epic on Cascade. The right side was a line of mushrooms with open spots you could see wet rock. There were two gushers bubbling to the surface making the ice pouring wet. The left side was worse. The slab was visibly thin ice with wet rock visible at the edges. It looked too thin for screws and very likely detached from the wet rock. The sun was out and heating it all up. I decided going home was better. As we topped out the lower ice to the walk I initially thought I was observing avi debris. Once closer it appears to be the broken remnants of the climb before it fell a couple weeks ago. Although I don't think any actual avi debris has run down the climb, the snow around the climb does seem to be facetted as per the bulletin. Also of note were one or two smaller rocks falling from above and one fist sized rock that came close to my partner as he lead had I not warned him. The climb needs cooler temps and less sun.

Approached Spray River Falls this morning but turned around due to poor travel conditions and uncertainty about loading above the climb due to last night’s storm. Very slushy snow, with standing pools of water on the trail in.

Climbed Professor Falls Sunday, with 3 other parties following. HS at valley bottom was ~5cm with -8ºC at 0800, increasing to ~20cm at the top of the climb and -4ºC by 1500. Ice on first two pitches was wet, drying off on the upper section.

Travelled on the summer trail to the summit of Cascade. Turned around before reaching the last pitch due to overhead hazard (cornice), cross loading and unsupported slope we had to cross. On the way down, we skied our skin track, ski triggered Sz2.5, ran approx. 300m,30m wide, 50cm deep @ 2500- 2600m on a SW aspect.

Natural avalanche seen above Mystic lift at Norquay whilst out skinning. Size 2. Dry slab, crown was at about 2300m, east aspect. 1m deep crown, 30m wide and ran around 150m. Rough estimates as I was far away, but the crown was very visible. No tracks were visible around area, rock and snowfall from rocks above is common so could have been a trigger.

Observed debris of a roughly size 2 wet slab avalanche down most of the Cascade Falls ice climb yesterday. Appeared to be triggered by daytime sluffs from rocks above - depth was roughly 10cm on average, width varied between 3-6m.

Saw what looked like a size 3+ running on Cascade - NE aspect, 2nd path from lockers right, ran at 0820 while I was driving to SSV. Looked massive and ran near full length. Didn't see trigger but suspect heavy sluffing or maybe cornice. Happy I was nowhere near there - play safe out there ...