Posted on behalf of Brad Harrison.

We made an attempt on Mt Bryce last weekend. We hoofed her to the bivy site just below the couloir on Saturday afternoon, hoping to do an 2:00 a.m. start on Sunday morning. Definitely a thrash up, the alders and brush are thicker than I remember from 10 years ago. I decided to descend through the trim line of the forest just SW of the smallest, old avalanche path. That worked really well, not very many windfalls, very little devil’s club, virtually no alder and generally quite forgiving footing.

We ended up at the bivy site but didn’t get up the couloir. Although there is quite a good snowpack on the upper portion where you exit onto the glacier, the lower part is mostly melted out or covered with rockfall. There is a large runnel likely from an avalanche or rockslide earlier on.

The South Rice Brook road is washed out around 1.5 kms below the first switchback. That’s not a big deal as it is only a 20-30 minute walk to the South Rice Brook crossing. The log I have to used to cross in the past has washed away and we ended wading the stream both ways.

Some photos of the bivy site, the South Couloir and some very fresh grizzly tracks are attached.