Yamnuska Mountain Adventures had teams out today climbing throughout the Bow Valley. All found generally excellent conditions despite last week's big upslope storm.

On Yamnuska, groups climbed Kahl Wall, Dreambed and Red Shirt. All three were dry and in great climbing shape except for the usual early season portable handholds. The group carried bear spray, but did not see any sign of the young bear that was spotted earlier this week looking for booty at the base of the wall. On the backside, there is now almost no trace of the 30+cm of snow that fell a few days ago. Likewise, on Kid Goat, the routes were nearly seep-free.

EEOR still has a couple of wet streaks on the face and in major gullies, but except for a few older snow patches on top, all of the new snow is gone. Since the upper slopes aren’t yet fully dry, our group avoided the rockfall hazard of the main face and climbed the True Grit wall instead. There is some construction and blasting happening on the road below, so it’s a bit noisy there right now.

Ha Ling has also almost completely emerged from under last week's white blanket. There are a number of new and old snow debris piles along the base trail that still need to be negotiated, but both the Greenwood route and Sisyphus were good to go.

The tick to climber ratio ran about 1:1

Carl Johnston
ACMG Alpine & Rock Guide