Hi MCR Subscribers,
Today, with friends Janette and Ryan, I climbed Whiteman Falls.
Between 0900-1400h, 5cm of new snow fell. Hwy 40 is not plowed south of the jct with Smith Dorrien Spray Trail. There was between 15-20cm new snow on the road.
The creek is frozen. The approach ice and pool are frozen enough to not be concerning.
The canyon walls stuffed all day with accumulations of up to 1.5m at the bottom of the most active gullies.
We climbed Whiteman Falls in two pitches on the right side. There was no evidence of a previous ascent. The first pitch required some steep climbing to get onto the mushrooms. We left a v thread in the cave to help prevent the inevitable swiss cheese and chopped out a good ledge. The cave is dry right now. From the cave, it was an easy step around into a groove that runs all the way up to the low angle transition. The top of this groove felt particularly hollow. The centre of the groove was weeping. The top out is thin, and we put our left foot through the tube a couple of times. There's enough pasted ice on the rock to carefully ascend to the anchor which is in good shape. We rapped to the ground in a single 70m rappel, kicking off as many of the hanging daggers as possible. Protection was good but spaced out. The climb felt like WI5-5+.
Brent Peters
Alpine Guide
PeakStratagem.com
It's not a great pic, but it was puking!
