On July 12th we climbed Mt Athabasca via the AA col and descended on the ramp route. We had spent the previous few days in the area and witnessed a lot of rain on July 10th with freezing level dropping somewhere between 2900m to 3000m only later at night. On the 11th, the cool temps stayed for most of the day with only a few clouds and light Westerly winds in the area.
On the ascent of the AA col on the twelfth, we had very supportive snow with freezing level well below 2600m. There was an obvious 5cm rain crust all the way up the Col and we noticed several size .5 to 1 loose wet avalanches on the West-facing slopes that were likely triggered by the rain event on the 10th. The rest of the route is in fairly dry conditions with the exception of the summit ridge that had ankle to knee-deep frozen bucket steps.
We descended the ramp route a little after 9am and took advantage of a warm solar radiation that left us with boot-deep snow steps somewhere between 3150m and 2900m. The route travelled well and there are signs that some crevasses may start to appear in the near future. There were numerous small size .5 loose wet avalanches on the most Easterly walls. Also, a decent size ice block detached from the serac just below the ramp route resulting in a size 2.5-5 avi with debris traveling almost to the toe of the glacier. It appeared to be a few days old.
Overall great travel conditions up and down. The Silverhorn and the North face appear to have a little more snow than a few weeks ago. We didn’t see any signs of avalanches on those faces.