I just returned from 5-days in the Cerise creek area where I was teaching a mountaineering course for Canada West Mountain School yesterday. We spent time in the Twin-One glacier and Vantage area, on the Anniversary Glacier and summited Mt. Hartzell.

The trail up to Keiths Hut is muddy for the first km or 2 and snowy for the last couple of Km's though generally supportive. There's about 1m of snow around the hut and the trail up to Anniversary Glacier is all snow with boot top foot penetration on the days with no overnight freeze.

We experienced some challenging weather with rain and snow almost everyday which provided great white-out navigation practice opportunities. Freezing levels fluctuating between mountaintop and the Motel 66 campsite (2000m) elevation with new snow varying in depth from 5 to 20cm depending on elevation. The new snow was rain saturated at lower elevations and moist near the mountain tops. We had one overnight freeze on Saturday night which made for quick travel.

The glacier itself has good coverage and the bergshrunds are still quite small. The rock routes in the Joffre Group are wet and snowy due to the rain and new snow.

On Saturday there was a number of recreational parties in the area. One climbed Matier via the NE Spur and reported finding a supportive crust over moist snow that was hard to kick through. There was also a split boarder in the area that skied portions of both Joffre and Matier.

Safe travels!