Attempted Mt. Robson with fellow guide, Larry Shiu on Aug. 11th. We made it to the top of the Kain Face (via the Patterson Spur approach) before turning around due to cold, windy, and whiteout conditions higher up. Normal unpleasantness for that upper mountain, right? Worth mentioning is that part of the Kain Face has slid to bare ice. We suspected that this avalanche (size 2.5) was roughly a week old and trigger during the previous warm spell. Conditions during our ascent were firm but isothermal snow could be found if you dug deep enough.
There remains lots of snow on the face for this time of the year, as was easily visible with the deep fracture lines (1 to +2m). Definitely not the place you’d want to be when things warm up!

The evening of the Aug. 11th brought a good dusting of snow that came down to 2200m. This dusting of snow was also evident on the surrounding peaks in the Mt. Robson and Jasper area as we drove home to Canmore the following day.

Pis are:
-approaching the Kain Face (Aug. 11)
-RR col and Mt. Resplendent (Aug. 10)
-looking up the Patterson Spur (Aug. 12)

Enjoy the rest of the summer!

Patrick Lindsay
Ridgeline Guiding Services