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Finally stopping that crazy suffering that is ice, climbing to concentrate on great ski tours!
3505 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2012 : 07:03 AM
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Columbia Trip Report
Dave, Kevin and I enjoyed a luxurious night at the Glacier View Inn, the hotel located at the Icefields Centre. If you time your stay right, it’s pretty affordable, and being a two minute drive from the parking lot was sweet. Arriving very late Wednesday night, we decided to sleep in a bit and enjoy breakfast in the restaurant and spend the day moving up the glacier.
Thursday morning was a bit of a disappointment, weather wise. We couldn’t even see the toe of the glacier! So, we enjoyed our omelets and faffed around in the Icefields Centre, hoping the weather would improve. By 10:00am, it was time to go, regardless. Luckily, the clouds lifted high enough for us to see the top of the third icefall, and this gave us a little optimism.
We drove right to the Snowcoach station, dropped our gear, drove back to the climber’s parking lot, and walked back to the station. We took a big stuff sack lined with a garbage bag, and left our runners stashed at the station, so that we wouldn’t have to walk back to the car in ski boots. This would prove pretty smart four days later…
Descending the steep gravel section of the snowcoach road sucked in ski boots, carrying our skis, but was over quickly. We skinned up the plowed glacier road, and then made a beeline for the first icefall. Of course, we did have to talk to a few bus tourists first, as they could see nowhere anyone would be interested in going!
We quickly moved up the first and second icefalls, and then took a break, contemplating the overhanging seracs we would have to race under. We thought about going to the left, but then decided to just get ‘er done. About a third of the way through the “gauntlet” I felt the rope suddenly yank on me. Kevin, skiing in the middle of the rope, had gone into a crevasse. Christ, this is not a good spot for this to happen. Luckily, with my help pulling on the rope, he was able to scramble out of the slot, and we made it to the base of the third icefall without further incident.
At the top of the headwall, the weather changed. Visibility dropped to near zero, and navigation was now map/compass/gps. Situation normal on the Columbia Icefields! With about one kilometer to our intended camp spot, I got tired of navigating from the front and breaking trail. We rotated, and Dave took over with me calling out direction changes.
With less than a hundred meters to our waypoint, we spotted an old camp. It looked big enough for our tent, and would save labour. It was mostly filled in, but the snow in the pit was softer and easier shoveling than the virgin neve.
The weather was still poor, and setting up the tent fighting the wind was tedious, but went quickly as all three of us looked forward to getting inside and firing the stove up. With sleeping bags, pads and gear all sorted, we crawled into the shelter and began to rehydrate and prepare supper. The great thing about traveling in this area at this time of year is the long days. It was light until nearly 11:00pm, giving us lots of time to get sorted out in case of a morning departure to Mt. Columbia.
I awoke in the middle of the night thanks to the storm that had picked up. It was really howling, and when Kevin went out to pee, found some very high winds and lots of snow. We weren’t sure if it was snowing, or just being transported by the strong winds. It didn’t matter, it still sucked. A quick note about the Black Diamond Squall tent: We were grateful to have a bomber shelter! Even in the high winds, the tent held its ground very well. It’s roomy for three, has a decent sized vestibule, and the weight per person is not bad.
Friday morning was cold (-13C) and the weather wasn’t great. Not as bad as the gale that visited in the night, but not a perfect day for going above 3700M. The forecast was for Friday to be the turnaround day, and then Saturday and Sunday to be fantastic. We found our camp pit was close to half filled in, so we spent some time digging it out, and pondering our next move. There was some dissension at this point, as I wanted to go with a combination of my gut and the forecast, but others wanted to go after the peak, not risking a worsening of the weather. Time and inaction eventually made the decision for us, and the day became about resting and eating and hydrating.
As I did last year, the MSR Reactor was the stove I choose for the trip, and proved once again that it must have been made for this environment. It was ridiculously fuel efficient, burning 2.5 cans of fuel for the entire trip! For three people, that’s incredible. I debated using the 2.5L pot, and it would have worked a little better for the three of us, but I wanted to save pack space.
As Friday progressed, the weather began to change, and only for the better. There was a renewed discussion about how perhaps we should have gone for it, but my gut still said that Saturday would be “the” day. The weather improved so much we brought the stove outside and had supper in the sun, watching Mt. Columbia watch us. We went to bed with clear skies and full bellies.
Saturday morning was cold. Based on how cold my nose was, I knew the skies would be clear. And they were! Not a cloud in the sky! -19C and clear as could be. We fired the stove and got breakfast going, all of us sensing that this could be it. At a late-ish 7:50am, we began skinning towards the trench. We went with skins on to keep our speed low as we had no idea of what type of crevasses were downslope of us. Slow, but safe. Then we began the trudge up the far side of the trench. Yuck. It’s as if someone dug it out just to demoralize climbers.
Eventually, we reached the flats, and the temperature began to rise. The large east face was staring at us, and presented no idea of the conditions we’d find. The flats are longer than they look, and it took quite a while before we finally traversed below the ‘schrund and finally crossed it on the far left side. At the base of the face, we dug a hasty pit, had some food, and donned our crampons. Kevin indicated he was feeling weak and we should be aware that his energy was a little low. We shorted the rope, and began kicking steps. With less than 20M of vertical gained, our crampons were balling up so bad it was unsafe. We took them off, and made faster progress. There was a ton of strastugi on the left side (the typical route) that was difficult to move through. There was a line cutting a diagonal to the climber’s right that looked easier, so we headed that way. Kevin took the front, but quickly wore out. Dave took over and led us up for another 60M of vertical. It was difficult going, as the snow was either so soft that it took a bunch of kicks to create a good step, or rock hard, and took a bunch of kicks to break into it. Crampons would have been useful on those sections, but no way could we put them on thanks to the repeated soft snow sections.
I took the lead and went into “steam engine” mode. I veered back to the left into the strastugi. A minimum of three kicks per step made for slow and tiring progress, and the strastugi added to the upward resistance. I veered right again and we made a little more speed. Dave and I switched leads a few times, still off to the right on the prominence of the face.
The face presented us with a new problem: a large crevasse cutting across the face with some pretty dubious looking snow bridges. I picked what I thought was a good bridge, and tip toed across, probing with my axe. Just before I reached the far side of the slot, the bridge gave way, and suddenly I found myself staring into a deep slot about to go for a two dimensional ride through space. I looked over and realized that Kevin had also gone onto the bridge, and now he was also breaking through. Shit! Two of us falling would be frickin disastrous! Dave kicked into power mode and backed up as Kevin dragged himself onto the ice and I gingerly moved back across the remaining bridge. Without crampons on, our boots scraped the bare glacier ice until we could move higher back into the snow, and we took a little break to let our heart rates return to “screaming” and have a look for another way over the slot.
Finally the angle eased off and we were staring up a giant cornice that created the lee side of the summit plateau. We took a quick food break and I hammered into the slope focusing on a weakness in the cornice. Finally, I broke through the cornice, and stared at the first horizontal surface I’d seen in four hours. We headed for the middle of the plateau, trying to avoid the cornice to the east. I pulled out my probe and after another couple of minutes; we were on the true summit. We spent close to forty five minutes on the summit, taking pictures and enjoying the views. The wind we’d been hit with on the face was gone, and we were actually warm and comfortable at the highest point. Nice.
Just below the summit, I’d had to lead us up through a wind slab that I’d been a little leery of, and on the descent, I was a little nervous, but it held. We finally reached our skis, and decided another break was in order. However, the wind picked up and drove us off the base of the face. Skins off, we made good progress to the flats, where we took a long break. We actually made some turns heading into the bottom of the trench despite the rotten crust. Now the trench bit us. Skins back on and over 200M of vertical for the 1.2km trip back to our camp.
We finally rolled back into camp, shy of thirteen hours out. Much longer than in the guide book, but slow progress on the face and a long break on the way back on the flats really added to the length of the day. Sunday morning we slept in a bit, and didn’t roll out of camp until 10:30. But, progress across the neve was better thanks to clear skies, and the skiing down the icefalls was fast and fun thanks to corn snow. By 1:00pm, we were trudging up the steep road to the station. By 2:00, we’d changed our clothes and were having a snack in the Icefields Centre.
Here's a link to a picture slideshow. I tried uploading pics, but it wouldn't work at all. These are my pics only, as I haven't received any from Kevin or Dave. They took pics as we ascended the face, but I didn't. I was busy!
Updated and improved show:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRJQN-RjYvg |
Edited by - johngenx on 06/09/2012 07:08 AM
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over the hills and far away
Canada
708 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2012 : 07:28 AM
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| Congratz! |
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Calgary, Alberta
Canada
617 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2012 : 08:07 AM
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Great TR John. Congrats on getting Alberta's highest mountain on your first attempt - and in clear conditions too!
Kind of scary that Kevin fell in a crevasse right under the seracs! That didn't look like a crevassed area to me when I went over it a few weeks ago - just shows that those evil things are lurking everywhere on the Columbia eh? How do yo "scramble out" when you have skis on though? Do they pop off? Obviously leashes are important hardware on the Columbia too...
As for the climb itself - it sounds like you were the only group there? That's surprising considering the weather you had. It seems like the first few weekends of May are the best time to do Columbia - when you have guides kicking steps all the way up for their clients. I'm sure there was a "ladder" kicked up the southeast ridge when we were on the ice fields a few weeks ago - we saw at least 5 or 6 parties camped near the trench!
I think when I go for Columbia next time, I'm going to try going at least 3km past the trench. The trench is an "energy sucker" on ascent day and the 6km ski across the "flats" before the mountain is just depressing on the way up. Now consider that when Ferenc and I did it in February, we were camped at least 6km from the trench, underneath Castleguard... 
Here's a picture from the Twins area showing how far you have to ski from the trench to Columbia:
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Edited by - vern.dewit on 05/29/2012 08:10 AM |
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Edmonton, Alberta
Canada
797 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2012 : 08:18 AM
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Great trip report.
My only complaint...no photos of the actual ascent up the face! Or the crevasse you nearly fell in on the face. Would have liked to see those to give me an idea of what it's like. I guess you were a little involved in other things like surviving, haha |
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Finally stopping that crazy suffering that is ice, climbing to concentrate on great ski tours!
3505 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2012 : 08:26 AM
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We were it. Didn't see another soul for four days! We would have loved a pre-kicked ladder, but in the end, not to be. We had to do the work...
Yeah, the Trench sucks. We planned on crossing it on day one, but none of us had been down into it before, and with the zero vis, I was worried about navigating micro terrain that was downslope, so difficult to see. So, we stopped 1.2km short of the Trench, at 2830M, knowing at least it was downhill...!
The flats. Cripes, they're not much better than the trench. What a slog. And not quite angled enough that you can coast all the way back.
As for the crevasses under the Snowdome Seracs, yup, they're there. Kevin scrambled out by using the added advantage of me moving forward with all my might! It looked horrible and clumsy, but got the job done. On the ski out, we went unroped through there to make speed (the seracs were very active) and the slot was open, so we "ski jumped" over it. Don't tell my wife about that move...  |
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Finally stopping that crazy suffering that is ice, climbing to concentrate on great ski tours!
3505 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2012 : 08:37 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by booewen
Great trip report.
My only complaint...no photos of the actual ascent up the face! Or the crevasse you nearly fell in on the face. Would have liked to see those to give me an idea of what it's like. I guess you were a little involved in other things like surviving, haha
I think the others have quite a few pics of the ascent. I was on the front end for a lot of it, and they snapped pics when I'd stopped to route-find, etc. Not sure if we have pics of the slot, it was a pretty intense moment. Dave noted that my state of mind was "rather obvious" (he's a Brit) by the 120db stream of f-bombs and other obscenities as I was retreating on the remains of the bridge. The problem with the slot is that it cuts an arc, and the horizontal part was gaping open. So, we had to cut a traverse across a bridge. I was suddenly facing a pendulum fall and a fall into the slot.
There are to MASSIVE crevasses on the face. One, up high near the top, was well bridged and posed little problem. The other, about 75% up the face, was probably the crux of the climb. |
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Calgary, Alberta
Canada
617 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2012 : 09:23 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by johngenx
The flats. Cripes, they're not much better than the trench. What a slog. And not quite angled enough that you can coast all the way back.
LOL - yeah that's how I remember it too!
quote:
As for the crevasses under the Snowdome Seracs, yup, they're there. Kevin scrambled out by using the added advantage of me moving forward with all my might! It looked horrible and clumsy, but got the job done. On the ski out, we went unroped through there to make speed (the seracs were very active) and the slot was open, so we "ski jumped" over it. Don't tell my wife about that move...
There's a few things not mentioned in my trip report either. It's not worth worrying our wives more than necessary.  |
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972 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2012 : 09:58 AM
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good one! looks like you couldn't of got any better weather than you did.
thanks for sharing |
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Edmonton
20 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2012 : 11:24 AM
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Ah John that's you. I was thinking Johngenx was short for John Genereux and was reading all your posts with a French accent.
So canister-based stoves work well in cold winter conditions and elevations? That's something I have wondered about for a while. (I try to keep my winter camping to minimnum - so I don't have much chance to test this.)
A big crack 3/4 of the way up - wow I have no recollection of that when we were there a few years back. If it was on a steep part, we would have been short-roping at that point (with not much rope out) which would make finding such a crack very interesting.
Congrats on making it up!
jp |
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Squamish, British Columbia
Canada
1008 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2012 : 11:38 AM
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Excellent TR and great pictures.
Question in regards to the MSR Reactor, did you use MSR or Gigapower cans and what size where they?
Where you melting a lot of snow and bringing it to a rolling boil or just melting it for the most part?
I've got the Reactor myself and find I can only make ~12L's of water per 227g canister between 1500m's and 2500m's elv. asl, ~4 of those liters I'd be bringing to a rolling boil.
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Finally stopping that crazy suffering that is ice, climbing to concentrate on great ski tours!
3505 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2012 : 12:13 PM
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As for the stove, we used 2.5 225g cans of fuel. The MSR brand of fuel is a slightly more cold weather aggressive blend, and I have noticed it does work better than others, with the Snowpeak probably the worst. The Brunton is 95% as good as the MSR.
In 2011, we used more fuel than this trip. The temps were MUCH lower (-32C overnight, -18C during the day) so I think that had a real effect on fuel usage.
It also depends on where you're running the stove. Except for supper time on Friday night, we ran it inside the tent. This saves fuel.
We ran most pots to a roiling boil. When rehydrating, it's best to have the water as hot as possible, which ain't great at 2800M. Can't imagine how people cook stuff at 7000M! |
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Calgary, Alberta
Canada
617 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2012 : 2:01 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by johngenx
It also depends on where you're running the stove. Except for supper time on Friday night, we ran it inside the tent. This saves fuel.
Yeah - no kidding it saves fuel! We carried 2 litres of fuel back with us because we burned MUCH less than the expected 125ml / person / day. We used the MSR Dragon which worked great. |
Edited by - vern.dewit on 05/29/2012 2:01 PM |
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the mountain parks, Alberta
Canada
102 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2012 : 4:08 PM
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quote:
That didn't look like a crevassed area to me when I went over it a few weeks ago
Have been through there a few times and yes, there are plenty of crevasses through there. |
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Kootenay Bud
2695 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2012 : 9:32 PM
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Must be glad to have that in the bag.
What is the purpose of shortening the rope when climbing the face?
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Finally stopping that crazy suffering that is ice, climbing to concentrate on great ski tours!
3505 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 05:34 AM
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When climbing on the snow, less rope between the climbers allows less momentum to be built up in the even that one falls and the group has to self arrest. When traversing, it means a much smaller pendulum if one falls. We were often weaving back and forth to avoid snow features and the overhanging seracs on the climber's right.
We could have done things differently at the largest slot. Instead of coming onto the bridge, Kevin could have ripped a screw in and then fed out some more rope to ensure that both of us weren't on the bridge at the same time. |
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Calgary, Alberta
Canada
109 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 7:59 PM
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| Congrats John!! Thanks for the post. |
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Finally stopping that crazy suffering that is ice, climbing to concentrate on great ski tours!
3505 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2012 : 2:09 PM
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More pics...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRJQN-RjYvg
(set to 720p and go large) |
Edited by - johngenx on 06/09/2012 07:07 AM |
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972 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2012 : 12:52 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by skibum101
quote:
That didn't look like a crevassed area to me when I went over it a few weeks ago
Have been through there a few times and yes, there are plenty of crevasses through there.
oh good to know. what other things can you correct us on skibum?? im an eager novice looking to learn. |
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Kootenay Bud
2695 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2012 : 7:14 PM
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Well, I'm not Skibum101 of the multiple aliases, but my two pennies worth is that I probably wouldn't - well definitely wouldn't - shorten up the rope so that there was the potential for more than one person to fall in a crevasse at the same time.
Johngenx says he does that for this reason: "When climbing on the snow, less rope between the climbers allows less momentum to be built up in the event that one falls and the group has to self arrest. When traversing, it means a much smaller pendulum if one falls."
Actually, I've never known anyone really do this, but I guess some mountain school somewhere teaches it. Seems to be highly situation dependent. If there are still crevasses, shortening up the rope seems downright silly. But, roping up with people who might fall and placing no protection is also downright silly. The annual Accidents in NAM seem to be full of people who've done that and had multiple injuries in the party when someone falls.
I'm not sure how many metres you'd have to dig for an ice screw placement. Certainly looks like the entire ascent was on snow. Which would leave you with either a dubious picket, unless you spent a long time digging a trench, compacting snow etc, or an even more dubious ice axe belay. |
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Finally stopping that crazy suffering that is ice, climbing to concentrate on great ski tours!
3505 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2012 : 7:38 PM
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There's two slots on the face, and they're obvious. We should have changed up the rope when crossing the large one. The snow was thin enough near the open section of the slot to put a screw in, without a lot of digging. We goofed at that point, and I readily admit it.
As for shortening the rope on steeper, traversing terrain, this is done all the time, and I've seen it many times, and done it many times. Guided groups do it all the time. As an example, when traversing the ramp on Mt. Athabasca, pretty much everyone is tight together. It means there is little availability for one climber to exert a strong force on the group.
And yes, there are "some mountain schools" that teach this travel technique all the time. Little known amateurish schools like Yam and novice guides like Barry Blanchard, Grant Meekins and James Blench. I learned it from them many years ago. |
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the mountain parks, Alberta
Canada
102 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2012 : 7:59 PM
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quote:
Well, I'm not Skibum101 of the multiple aliases
Do you project paranoia on all new users of this site? It seems every time I post you make some sort of reference to my having been here previously.
Mcan, I am not going to reply to a defensive posts, you made an assumption and I was pointing out my experience through that section. |
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The Official Mt. Columbia TR-updated pics
