Climbed the Schiesser-Perren loop above Moraine Lake on Tuesday as a training day, climbing up the Schiesser and down the Perren. Unsettled weather, slowish travel and a bit of a late start (we were only able to secure seats on the Parks 5am shuttle) meant we didn’t head up any of the peaks on the way.

The creek crossing at the head of the lake is deep (over boot top) and fast. I’d recommend carrying extra footwear and potentially traction for the logs, but the cables are in good shape.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, there’s still a lot of snow up there! Lots of the ledges on the Schiesser are holding snow, making for some tricky short roping at times. The chain area has running water, and the upper steep section is dry. The Perren is in similar shape, with big snowfields below both steep pitched sections. The lower chimney is choked with snow, and while the chain section is dry, the upper and lower traverse ledges are both holding snow.

The glaciers on both sides of the Neil Colgan are snow covered, making for fast travel and easy hut access, but we only probed ~70-80cm on the flats (>2m in more wind drifted areas). The bergschrunds below the access to the West Ridge of Fay and the North Ridge of Little appear well filled in, but the schrunds below the Fay north face routes are gaping pretty wide.

We didn’t observe any avalanches directly, and most of the snow we traveled on had transitioned to a summer snowpack. There was evidence of recent loose wet slides to size 1, possibly from the recent rain event.

Across the valley, Sentinel Pass and the scramble route on Temple still looked very snowy, as did the upper reaches of the East Ridge.