Little Yoho

Fresh avalanche observed in one of the Mt Field highway avalanche paths. The debris looked wet and dirty, indicating a possible deep persistent slab.

Had a great day out picking our way along low-angled terrain to find some good turns. An ECT produced no results, despite the presence of all the layers mentioned in the bulletin (and then some). Regardless of the non-result we played it safe and enjoyed the fast snow on terrain below 30 degrees.

Beer routes looking lean. No real ice on Twisted. Super Boc didn’t look climbable. Main pillar on Cool Spring formed. Bottom of Massey’s/slabs looked really thin. Pilsner not touching down and a long way from being formed. Carlsberg has been climbed but stiff conditions. Guinness lower pitches looking very thin. With lean conditions and a small amount of fresh snow up on Mount Stephen/gully start zones we decided not to climb. We did climb Hamilton Falls near Emerald Lake. Good trail in and dry ice.

Ice conditions are thin and forming around Field with only about 15 cm in the valley bottom. No evidence of any avalanche activity yet, likely not enough snow yet but the snow that is there is facetting and becoming weak. The next storm should produce some avalanche action in these gullies.

Fresh 5-8 cm of snow sitting on hard, avalanche scoured bed or rugged debris in the gully

Fresh avalanche debris from a size 2 avalanche in gully directly below Silk Tassle, with the start zone above the ice climb. Avalanche occurred some time between when the snow finished falling yesterday afternoon and this morning before our approach. Fresh debris was witnessed in the Super Boc gully on the south side of Hwy 1. Looked like 10 cm of fresh snow in Field, considerably less than what fell at Castle Junction. Avalanche forecast of mod, mod, low, seemed spot on to mention to stay out of avalanche gullies after the fresh snowfall yesterday. Temperatures were a bit warmer than forecasted as per usual once at Field, partly cloudy, -5 C upon arrival, -1 C when returned to the car. Ice was slushy on the surface but no snice!

Perfect conditions on Super Bock today. The ice was dry and plastic and the whole area was still; probably about -5 in there with no wind or new snow. The avalanche hazard is low and there is a lot of old debris in the gully from past cycles.

Great climbing and the approach is well beat in. Fantastic plastic ice with dry lines available.

Put the track into Extra Lite, first 5 min is wallowing but then avalanche debris allows for quicker travel. Ice was okay and good for protection but a little brittle. Travel up to the final pitch was good at times with other deep wallowing sections

**Old avi debris goes to the road. **Ice in decent shape. Mostly good protection. **P1 is well travelled on the left, fat and good on the right. **P2 has a groove on the right that looked a little wet. Left side well travelled. **P3 is wide. Can be climbed either side on obvious lines. Ice seemed a little more brittle on P3 than P1&2. **All pitches were dry climbing although P3 on the right edge was wet with new ice too thin to protect. **OF NOTE. The bolted rap station on the right side of P3 was not visible. It is either on a,lower ledge covered in snow, or higher and buried in ice.

Avalanche control on Mt Dennis to clean up a few leftover areas that threaten the road (near the ice climbs). We hit the road for a second time this week with a skinny finger that is entirely below treeline. Very similar feature to Guiness Gully and just to its east.

CP Rail did explosive control above the tracks on the ice climbs Home Brew and Super Bock. Both produced large avalanches (at least size 3) that ran to the tracks with dust to the river.

Explosive avalanche control on Mt Field above the ice climb Silk Tassel yielded impressive results with a large powder cloud across the highway.

Weather: Cold, calm, overcast in the AM clearing in the PM. Temps around -10C through the day. Observed approx 15-20cm new snow over a solid crust. We didn't see any sluffing during the climb. Approach Ice (P1) The initial pillar was aerated & good pro hard to find. FYI, a 70m rope does not make it to the big rap rock. P2 We split the upper ice into 2 pitches utilizing the fixed anchor out right. The climbing & pro were superb. We climbed a dry line just L of centre. P3 This looked fun but it was pretty wet. Since we were off to the Distillery for more adventure I didn't want a wet ass, so we bailed.

Temps were -7C in the morning warming to -5C through the day. Wind was calm. We noticed less than 10cm HST over a strong crust. There appeared to be little previous avalanche activity in the gully. All 3 pitches climbed well, there is flowing water over the ice but a dry line can be found. Currently this climb is not picked out. There are a few thin spots but I was able to place BD 'blues' on all pitches. The ice on P3 is not as wide as usual. Someone has cleaned the old tat off the tree anchors at the top of P1 & P2. There are currently 2 strands of 6mm cord. These anchors could do with a mullion. No one has made it over to the fixed anchor at the top of P3, so I can't comment on whether it's iced over or not. We climbed above the big ledge (usual stopping point for P3) to a tree anchor & a semi-hanging belay.

Below threshold.

Not an inspiringly great snowpack structure at this elevation. From the avalanche forecast, the crust allegedly diminishes at 2100-2250m so the snowpack is likely to be far better above this elevation apart from the windslab issues.

Super Bok looked a bit grim today - beaten up by the rain with unstable snow all around. The gully did produce a huge avalanche on Monday that ran to about 100m above the railroad tracks.

The recent storm has been warm and rainy at low elevations and temporarily wrecked any ice climbing around Field. Pilsner is gone. Carlsberg looks bad but is still there and I did not see Guiness but expect it may have washed away too. These should recover soon with colder temps. Many large avalanches have run naturally over all of these climbs and there is now big piles of dirt filled avalanche debris in all the gullies and runouts. The upper elevation start zones still hold quite a lot of dry snow. I'd wait a while before climbing here.

There was a reasonable freeze overnight -5C at 8:00am. There was avy debris on the approach, perhaps in the last few days, but what you might expect to see this time of year. Wind was calm & there was light cloud cover. Approach ice was hooked out. The main pillar was wet down the middle with several lines either side of centre.The upper pitch was dripping closest to the belay, a dry (plastic) line is off to the left. There is a 2 ring anchor (the tree use to be the anchor) to the right of the tree at the top of the 2nd pitch. Ice quality was awesome, plenty of features to hook on P1, & plastic ice on P2. We were back to the car by 2:00pm, temps were +6C. Although there were no indicators of solar input (pin wheeling, snow falling off trees etc) the firm trail up was now a soft trail down. Climbs under Mt Stephen looked fine, Silk Tassel looked over.

From the highway most of the climbs on Dennis and Stephen looked in good shape. Close up that may be different. If you cross the river to get to the Stephen climbs at least some sections of the river were open however driving at 90kmh I couldn't say what ice bridges remained. One observation we made as we left the area is that the sun was just starting to hit Carlsberg around 5pm. Pilsner was still in shade but may have gotten sun a little later. Guinness was travelled but not as much of a hookfest as it sometimes is. Pitch 1 pro was reasonable but some air pockets means trying a second placement. Pitch 2 was steep but a nice groove and features made it fun. The groove trends left as the angle eases so choose a belay location that isnt exposed to ice fall below it. Pitch 3 was the crux. Some questionable screws and steeper than some years. Also a lot of fracturing. Noticably more than on the lower pitches. Right side on the rappel line had some wet ice but generally most pitches were dry. A non climbing observation: the Tiger Shark beer at Truffle Pigs is a tasty refreshing way to rehydrate before you leave Field.

-8 when we left the car at 9am There was no trail to the base of the climb which resulted in a good wallow until we were able to surmount the avy debris. The snow pack is very faceted except for where the facets have overlying slab. The ice climbed well for the first 1/2 and then the quality deteriorated from there to the top. Eggshell, snice and just enough good ice to keep me interested in climbing higher. 55 meters and felt WI4. Flurries started around 12pm, winds picked up and small amounts of spin drift started to come over the climb. -2 when we returned to the car at 1pm

Climbed Twisted, starting from the car around 8am. Temperatures were mild and there was calm winds and snow all day. The ice is quite picked out still from all the early season traffic, but fresh lines can still be found. Snow was deep in tree line and below with minimal crusts, but in the paths and on top of the climb there were patchy 4F hardness windslabs. Roughly 5cm of snow between 10am-4pm.

Hiked up to the base of Pilsner this morning. Debris from previous slides ran through the trees and had 10cm of new snow on top. The debris nearest the climb appeared to be more recent with only 3cm of snow on top. I can’t comment on the climbing but it seemed challenging to get good gear and we went to Guinness instead. No evident of recent slides on Guinness. The day was generally overcast with occasional blue sky patches poking through. No new snow overnight, no snow through the day. Winds were calm, although we did observe blowing now at ridge top near Castle Junction on the way home. Temperatures felt quite warm, I don’t have exactly numbers.

Mostly cloudy this am with 10cm new snow overnight leaving the to climb Guiness Gully. Increasing amount hiking up- 20cm at base of 1st pitch and 2nd on top of old avy (size 1) debris at base of climb. Climbed 1st pitch. Obersved sluffing 2-3 times coming off the top of second pitch. Decided to rappel down. When back at the 1st pitch belay cliffbands agan sluffing more overhead. No noticeable wind this am.

The approach had 25-35cm of low density snow sitting over rocks/ground. The climb overall was harder than it looked. Pitch 1 was thin and involved sections of rock scratching. Pitch 2 had good hooks and was sustained with an overhung section to navigate over on climbers left line. Pitch 3 was overall great with slight ice deterioration at the top. 2 rappels with 70m half/twins brought us back to the base. Car temperature of -10 degrees at 4pm.

Size 1.5 debris at the bottom of the climb had very little snow on it so must have come down towards the end of the storm 3 days ago. Tracks indicated that people had climbed it yesterday. 20-30cm of mostly unconsolidated, i.e. non cohesive snow above the first pitch. A quick hand shear test was done and the 30cm of storm snow could be pulled as a block but it was not very cohesive. So yes there is a ton of snow in there and the neighbouring trees also have a fair bit of snow in them. As the sun slightly heated tree tops towards the end of the afternoon, we witnessed two size 1 loose avalanches (potentially enough to knock a climber off) most likely triggered by tree bombs that picked up mass as they went down. So heads up in there if it gets warmer or if the wind picks up!

Ice Climbing - Superbok. The strong inversion this morning has given the climb a surge of a new life. Above the keyhole is growing fast with running water. We didn’t have the gumption today for such an experience but expect when freezing levels return the climb will be in excellent shape. Snow conditions - see photo. Ankle deep snow in the gully except sheltered areas. The effect of the inversion was very noticeable with elevation gain.

Superbok was in mostly good condition today. Approach pitches were thin at top, and the 2nd WI4 curtain was very chandeliery and wet. Crux pitch was in much better condition than the WI4 curtains. Snow amounts seemed to be below threshold for avalanche activity, no slides witnessed.

Pilsner was unfortunately soaking wet, couldn’t even look upwards on any side, us and another party backed off it. -9 in the lot, -3 at the base of the route (inversion?). Bluebird day, no wind, no new visible snow, gully/bowls above not nearly as loaded as normal but still need to be respected. Mixed routes to the right were in and super fun.

View across to the Mt. Stephen ice climbs - you can see an old fracture line above Super Bock.