I guided a team of four keen folks from Yamnuska Mountain Adventures up high onto the Hector glacier yesterday on a summit attempt. We turned around at ~ 3100m as the steeper glacier above was mainly bare ice. As expected, ski quality ranged from fair to terrible with deep sastrugi but we were able to keep skis on for the the entire descent. Yesterdays stellar weather made for a beautiful day to be in the mountains despite the challenging snow conditions.
We made a few observations which might be helpful for future attempts:
- There is currently minimal avalanche debris on the steep solar slopes that you ascend underneath Andromache as you leave the forest. A thin sun crust here meant for easy trail breaking on the ascent with no ski crampons needed. This pitch skiied nicely in the afternoon (~1430) with daytime warming and no new avalanche activity was noted here even with full sun in the afternoon.
- There is water ice and exposed rock in the gully, we bootpacked the lower part and then headed right into the trees and didn't need boot crampons but enjoyed some facetted kickturns and wallowing in the trees. Ascending the entire gully would likely require boot crampons.
- The steeper moraine that you ascend to exit the Andromache/Hector valley has deep sastrugi making for a difficult ascent and descent (photo). This will take a fair amount of new snow to smooth over...
- Debris from a size 3 avalanche off Little Hector filled the valley between the moraines and Little Hector. It was difficult to tell how old this was due to all the recent wind, but cornices remain overhead on Little Hector, and we gave these some space on the ascent.
- The Hector glacier is more broken than I have seen before, with lots of sags and open crevasses visible. I had a photo from late summer 2021 to help in planning my route (see attached) and decided to take a more climbers right line than I often do. We probed a consistent 2-3m+ of firm snow on the glacier (lowest # was 1.5m, but there was also plenty of bare ice visible...). There were plenty of small holes in low angled terrain that could catch people by surprise in poor visibility.
- The upper glacier is almost entirely bare ice. You would not be able to skin up it right now. Above where we turned around would be cramponing/ pitched climbing on ascent and descent. I noticed a crevasse that I have never seen before that runs across most of the glacier right below the col to lookers left of the summit (photo).
- The rock band above the col appeared bigger than my memory of it from ~ 2-3 years ago.
This was the earliest in the winter I have even been on Hector and following a period of very strong winds, so many of these observations are expected. I suspect the changes in the glacier are a direct result of the record heatwave we experienced this summer and a cumulative effect of the gradually shrinking glaciers...
Despite the conditions, it was a great day to be up high in the mountains!
Ian Jackson
ACMG Mountain Guide working for Yamnuska Mountain Adventures
