I guided a group around the McBride Traverse this past week. We finished today.

Weather was generally amazingly clear. A windy cold clear air mass moved in from the North on the 27th. This froze up the wet surfaces, (re)moved loose snow and made for tricky icy travel on all aspects and elevations. Ice axes and ski crampons where useful tools! Using the sun to warm the upper cm helped too. We didn't see too much corn or isothermal snow except for under 1800m.

There is ample snow cover over the glaciers. On the Sir Richard glaciers toe there is 2.4m and everywhere higher up I found over 3m. However many crevasses have sags showing.

We saw lots of older avalanche debris (some associated to up to 1m or deeper fracture lines) but the colder temps seemed to have frozen much activity. The high winds did create a few wind slab pockets on the 27th some where moving.

The trail out from Garibaldi Lake was really frozen and hard to ski this morning. Many hikers have post holed it and created a uneven path. There is snow down to 1100m. Probably best to ski it late in the day.

Fantastic (if not a bit hard and crunchy) traverse conditions.