Hi Everyone,
Further to Lilla's post a day or two ago, I came out of the Highwood area yesterday (Friday Jan 8th) after a training course and came across Darren and Kenji who had just walked part way out of Whiteman's Falls. They climbed the first pitch and had a very unsettling settlement somewhere proximal to Kenji's tools at the top of the 1st pitch. The sound the settlement made thundered through the canyon. They retreated.
It appears these events reinforce the imperative of carefully assessing the ice we are to climb when we roll up to freestanding ice features. The temperatures had been consistently cold leading up to the 5th of January, the freezing levels rose to about 1900-2000 on Jan 6th and then yesterday the temps returned to seasonal values of about -10.0 and yesterday morning to -20.0. Perhaps this is contributing factor to the settlements and perhaps not, nonetheless it is worth being aware of.
Best Regards,
Paddy Jerome
Public Safety Specialist
Kananaskis Region
Alberta Environment and Parks
Office: 403 687 5500 ext: 277
Cell: 403 678 7064
Email: paddy.jerome@gov.ab.ca
Facebook: Kananaskis Public Safety
Twitter: Kananaskis Public Safety
