Hi all,

We guided a ski ascent of Mount Monashee (3275m) in the Northern Monashee Mountains yesterday April 27th 2016. We access the mountain by helicopter from Valemount to a camp located at 2300m by a small lake on a bench feature just beside a large unnamed glacier at the headwaters of Moonbeam creek (52°24'25.92"N, 118°58'6.82"W).

From our camp location we ascended broken glacier terrain in a Southeasterly direction between Mount Lempriere and Torii Mountain towards the Sepentine Neve. Once on the Neve, we continued up the steepening Northwest facing slopes of Mount Monashee on skis to a 3220m shoulder just West of the main summit. Boot crampons and ice axe were used for the short mixed snow & rock scramble via the West ridge to the summit. The ascent was done comfortably in one day from camp (950m ascent over 5km).

Similar to our previous trip to the Cariboo Range, there was about 5-10cm of recent new snow above 2800m overlying a very firm 5-10cm crust. This crust was present at all elevation and aspects, it made for great travelling conditions and mostly stable snowpack. The snowpack was firm and dry in the morning and moist on solar aspects in the pm. We saw no signs of instability and measured upwards of 300cm of settled snow on the glacier above 2500m.

Another highly recommended Spring ski mountaineering tour!

Cheers,

David Lussier
acmg mountain guide
Kenton Lambert
acmg apprentice ski guide
www.summitmountainguides.com