I brought a group from Moraine Lake to Lake O'Hara via Wenkchemna and Opabin pass yesterday. Wenkchemna pass to the base of the Tokkum glacier was in excellent walking condition. The goodness ended there.

The Tokkum glacier is now almost completely covered in fresh rockfall debris. The ice was still mostly bare last summer. Some of that debris is perched on the two sloping tongues and we watched a large block shift and roll over from the ice melting underneath it. You can minimize the exposure there somewhat but you certainly can't completely avoid it. The slope up to Opabin pass is all covered in dirt but we had to traverse in from far climbers right to stay off the thinly covered bare ice on the lower section. Unpleasant travel and some large perched blocks to avoid.

The Opabin glacier side of the pass is much worse. LOTS of big unstable blocks. It looked manageable from the Pass but it took a lot of micro routefinding to stay away from the worst spots in several places. It has also changed dramatically for the worse since last summer.

Now that I have seen the extent of the problem I will not do it again this season. Not matter how good you think your boulder management is if it really started raining hard(like it did last night) it could be a real nightmare.

Hopefully the worst offenders will be "resettled" by snow creep and avalanches over the next winter and spring but we shall see. I am not really very optimistic

My 3rd bad news conditions post this summer. "Don't kill the messenger."

Larry Stanier
ACMG Mountain Guide