Climbed the Presidents with Jen, John and Bree from Fort "Mac" yesterday.
We hiked in on Friday the 27th and after a short delay in Field to avoid a rainy start, we basically stayed dry during our whole trip. We got snow and other forms of frozen precip on our way up but no rain and no accumulation along the trail.
The mountains of little Yoho appears to have received a bit less snow than the Louise group. However the twin peaks and the glacier did accumulate snow before our arrival and during the afternoon of the 27th while we were in the hut.
In total, an average of 10cm covers most of the firn snow and a bit more on the upper peaks. Wind played with the snow as it came in and has covered the glacier with a smooth coat of primer and has loaded a few areas with as much as boot top snow, smaller crevasses are now harder to see. I however did not notice much in terms of wind slab, the snow was quite light. The steeper snowy aspect of the vise president looked quite icy down low with not too much for loading up high ( i had a quick look form the top).
Lower down on the glacier (right side approach) it would of been easy to walk into a few smaller ones. We used a short probe to make our ascent through thin sections less eventful and smoother.
The rock and scree was mostly covered but at this point i feel it made travel more enjoyable.
The big thing to take home was the hardness of the firn snow (3 degrees Celsius at 6AM at the hut) . The new snow was getting sticky as we descended from our ascents at 12:30. Where we kicked steps earlier in the month, the snow is now hard and front pointing is required to move through the crux to the col. We used solid snow pickets for protection.
On a side note, we counted 18 fallen trees across the the trail from the hut on our way out, the biggest being about a foot and a half in diameter....shallow soil i guess! In most cases you had to go under or climb over going around was only better in a few cases.
Cheers
Patrick Delaney ACMG Alpineguide www.yamnuska.com
