Spent August 19-22 at the Lloyd MacKay hut in the Mt. Alberta area with my friend Sebastian. The river crossing was no deeper than mid-shin. The hike in was mostly on good trails (several short sections close to the creek were washed out), we added several cairns beyond the Mt. Woolley/Mt. Diadem bivy sites going into the moraines. Of note, from Woolley shoulder, glacier travel is not mandatory to get to the hut. Instead we traversed slabs and permanent snow patches to the hut. The hut is in need of a new register, if the next party would be so kind to carry that in.
On August 20th, we climbed the Northeast ridge in dry conditions. Overnight freeze was around 2800m. We used Raphael Slawinski's description (found here: http://members.shaw.ca/raphael2/alberta.html) to great success. The upper NE ridge has some great climbing, allowing you to enjoy the North Face views without the commitment or objective hazard!!! Actual amount of pitched out climbing varies by comfort level, we belayed 2 more 60m rock pitches after the 5th pitch (as per description) to the snow/rock ridge that leads to the summit ridge. The attached topo reflects these extra 2 rock pitches. No summit register was found, though it might have been buried under the snow. The summit ridge was in great shape, after the initial snow section down from the summit, all travel was on rock. Having never done the descent, upon Barry's recommendation we opted to wait till daylight to continue from the bottom of the rappels. We greatly appreciated the hot tea and foamy from Barry Blanchard's team, thanks guys!
Around 0300 on August 22 it started snowing at the hut (2720m), accumulating to 10-15cm by 1300. We encountered wind-scoured conditions leading up and down Woolley shoulder with pockets of very firm windslab (which we were able to avoid). Firn line was down to 2400m on the E side of Woolley shoulder (level with the Mt. Woolley/Mt. Diadem bivy sites). Mt. Cromwell's North Face sure looked more appealing after all the snow!!
Maarten van Haeren
ACMG ARG
