Yesterday, after a few brutal days of indoor sessions at the managers meetings in Banff, I finally got out to enjoy the wintery landscape we have right now here in the Bow Valley.
Since there is not enough snow right now in the rockies to do a proper ski tour without hitting rocks, I went to Sunshine ski area and up the still closed Goats eye mountain. After escaping the minus 22 at the parking lot with a chilly northerly wind, I was pleasently surprised by warmer air up high with almost no wind. I even managed to have a long hang at the top without even putting a jacket on. Great to see the magic winter wonderland again.
As you can see, Bourgeau left is in great shape right now with no signs of previous activity. I was surprised that with all the desperate climbers out there looking for some smears of ice 3 hours up some wired drainage, that such an obvious classic has not been explored yet. The picture below shows the starting zones of the bowl above the climb. I think you are safe climbing it right now, but I would keep an eye on it if there is more snow or wind in the future. I don't trust the Nov. crust layer at all and with more load it might become a serious issue. Play safe and have fun and let's hope for more moderate temperatures in the near future.
Since there is not enough snow right now in the rockies to do a proper ski tour without hitting rocks, I went to Sunshine ski area and up the still closed Goats eye mountain. After escaping the minus 22 at the parking lot with a chilly northerly wind, I was pleasently surprised by warmer air up high with almost no wind. I even managed to have a long hang at the top without even putting a jacket on. Great to see the magic winter wonderland again.
As you can see, Bourgeau left is in great shape right now with no signs of previous activity. I was surprised that with all the desperate climbers out there looking for some smears of ice 3 hours up some wired drainage, that such an obvious classic has not been explored yet. The picture below shows the starting zones of the bowl above the climb. I think you are safe climbing it right now, but I would keep an eye on it if there is more snow or wind in the future. I don't trust the Nov. crust layer at all and with more load it might become a serious issue. Play safe and have fun and let's hope for more moderate temperatures in the near future.
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