Tucker Roderick and I got back yesterday from 5 days guiding in The Bugaboos for Altus Mountain Guides. We climbed Lion’s Way, West Ridge of Pigeon Spire, South East Spur of Brenta Spire, Kain Route on Bugaboo Spire, and Eastpost Spire.

We had cold and windy temperatures, with good freezes every night, long johns every day for most of the day, and often 1-2 puffy jackets while climbing.

Snow cover on glaciers is still excellent (spring like), with straightforward route finding down the Bugaboo Glacier and snow all the way off the toe to the rocks. We crossed a couple of short 50m sections of bare ice to avoid crevasses and rock fall, but it would still be possible not to touch ice on the way down.

The West Ridge of Pigeon Spire is still mostly snow lingering from winter traversing between the 2nd and 3rd summits, and the gully on the last pitch is still choked with snow.

There is an unusually large patch of bare ice at the base of Sunshine Crack, which has forced the track up to the Bugaboo-Snowpatch col out far right where there is more rockfall hazard from snow patches lingering on the Kain Route. However, we didn’t see any natural rockfall there this week. In general, the Bugaboo-Snowpatch col is still in excellent condition for this time of year with snow all the way to the top, and the Bergschrund easy to pass (see photo from August 13th).

I heard it's supposed to get warmer this weekend, it should be amazing conditions!

Alex Geary and Tucker Roderick