We climbed Mont Des Poilus today. On the lower glacier it was bare ice with a few cm of snow drifted into depressions. Consistent snow coverage didn’t begin until about 2700 m, where 5-10 cm gradually deepened to about 60 cm closer to the summit. Most of this snow was from the late summer storms, it seems the mountain would have been bare of snow at the end of the heat spell in August.

There was no overnight freeze below 3000 m last night, so the snow was moist. Trail breaking was mostly boot top deep on the upper mountain, a bit deeper near the summit ridgecrest.

The glacier is quite crevassed right now, but probing with a hiking pole was fairly easy with the shallow, warm snowpack. Once it freezes travel will be fast but it will also be hard to distinguish crevasses.

Note that the bridge above Twin Falls on the Whaleback trail has been taken out for the winter, so you can’t connect the trails between Twin Falls and Little Yoho.