Hi everyone,

Here is a summary of conditions from last week's Canadian Mountain and Ski Guide program, Ski Guide exam in the Canadian Rockies.

Our groups skied on Popes Peak, Mount Niblock (Divide Creek), Cathedral Mountain, Cirque Peak, Observation Sub-Peak, Mount Hector, and the Murray Creek area of Kananaskis country.

There has been additional snowfall since our last trip so I will not comment on current avalanche conditions or ski quality.

With new snow and strong winds over the last few days of the course, we witnessed several natural cornice failures up to size 2. None of these triggered the deeper instabilities still lingering in the Rockies snowpack.

General Observations
Cirque Peak
The couloir is rockier than usual and required a 40 m lower to get to snow. Boot crampons might be helpful if you have a shorter rope.

Cathedral Mountain
We skied to the Trans-Canada Highway via the Cathedral Crags couloir. There is still a waterfall ice section at its most narrow point that can be passed with a 15 m rappel from a bolted station on the skiers left.

Mount Hector
The upper section of the Hector glacier was highly wind affected. There was a significant amount of bare glacier ice showing on the two steep slopes above 3000 m. We used boot crampons for the final slope to the col and the climb to the main summit. The snowpack depth on the glacier was highly variable with anywhere from 0-250 cm.

Wapta Conditions
There was a 300+cm snowpack with no crevasses visible on the Bow and Vulture glaciers. One of our groups deliberately triggered a size 2 avalanche in the Vulture col on April 9th, and the bed surface is likely reloaded now.

Divide Creek
One group came across fresh bear tracks on their way through the forest a few days ago!

As Tom Wolfe said, it feels more like mid-March than mid-April out there at the moment.

All the best,

Marc Piché
ACMG Mountain Guide