On July 5th we climbed Haddo via E ridge, then Aberdeen, and came down on Aberdeen glacier. We were hoping to scope an alternative ascent/descent route avoiding the Aberdeen glacier. Unfortunately the E ridge of Haddo is unsuitable for this, mainly because rockfall in the bowl leading to the ridge is a major issue that we were unable to manage safely. The ridge itself is crappy, very loose, and offers about 20m of good climbing.
Aberdeen glacier was in surprisingly good condition while coming down pretty late at 13h30. The raps on ice anchors from the col were clean, we stayed about 10m right of the rock edge. On the last rap it is possible to swing right, avoid the loose blocks stacked on the edge, and get over the schrund without being exposed to them. The lower glacier is bare ice.
We've added a new rap station to extend the existing one that avoids the lower glacier tongue. The rap line goes over the first rock band in 4 rappels, all less than 30m (pic 3, 4, NOT current snow/ice conditions).
First station (pic 1) is on the first bench when coming straight down the main glacier, about 10m right of the rock rib and creek/waterfall pouring off there. Once on the lower, larger bench, walk to the far side of the large black boulder (pic 2). From there, 3 raps take you to the morraine covered lower glacier tongue
Receeding ice made this a horrible place lately, with constant rockfall every few minutes. After the raps we escaped skiers hard left until well clear of the receeding ice slopes bellow us.