On Feb 19th my buddy, Scotty, and I climbed Wicked Wanda. The horizontal ice in the valley bottom and along the approach trail was arguably more dangerous than the vertical ice and I vowed that next outing in the front ranges would see traction devices on my feet, other than my crampons.
The route was dry and in stellar shape with a fresh face and little evidence of previous ascents. We climbed it in two pitches with the second pitch taken on the climber's left hand to avoid dripping on the more common right hand variation. Sustained technical climbing of excellent quality and good screws, pig heaven.
The immediate area is about 98% bare rock and blue ice and 2% snow: no avalanche hazard in the alpine, treeline or below treeline. We carried no avalanche safety equipment.
Feb 21, 22 I instructed Avalanche Safety Training 1 in the Bow Summit area amongst numerous slabs out on north to east aspects in the alpine and treeline. The prize winner the 450 metre crown on Bow Peak mentioned in the Banff National Park hazard forecast over the weekend. Shocking to us was two Rutschblock scores of 2 with the whole block failing on the Jan 6th layer when the skier stepped one ski onto the block (https://www.mec.ca/media/Images/pdf/RutschblockTest_v2_m5657756983064519...). The failures were resistant planar on north aspects of 28 degrees at 2150 metres.
Monday we skied Bow Summit South avoiding overhead threat and skiing 1 and 2 at a time. Ski quality was very good, but I suspect that it's all tracked out now.
Feb 23 I guided an ascent of The Professor Falls. The golf course road has been sanded and rides well with normal bikes. We left our bikes at the closed road where the riding is on pure ice. If you have studded bike tires you could ride all the way to the drainage, or even the climb on a snow bike. I had traction devices and my client and I put them on although it is all ice all the way so one could just use crampons as I did on the way out.
The climb is big and blue and there is water running in places . The last pitch (the crux) is being climbed up the front of the pillar rather than it's left edge as in most other years. We carried avalanche safety equipment.
Happy Trails,
Barry Blanchard
