Climbed the North face of Mt Forbes on a three day trip from July 14-17.

On the approach to the bivy at the base of the North Glacier we had to make two river crossings. One on the river between Glacier Lake and the unnamed lake below the Lyell ice fall, and another on the outflow at the base of the Mons Glacier. Both crossing were between knee and waist deep and required some investigation to find what seemed like the best spot to cross.

Our bivy at the base of the Forbes North Glacier (2300m) was snow free.

The North Forbes glacier was mostly dry till 2500m, above 2500m the lowered angle terrain (less then 30 degree) had good travel with a more consolidated snowpack. As the terrain steepened on the North Face the snow conditions changed. On the North face we found a 4cm crust, that had formed overnight. The crust overlaid a moist punchy snowpack. In many places the surface crust couldn't support our body weight and we were breaking through.

We summited the peak at 07:00 and by 08:30 the surface crust began to breakdown.

Conditions were still favorable for this objective, but seemed to be changing quickly.