In alignment with the recent avalanche forecasts for Banff and Yoho national parks, we just want to confirm the presence of a spindrift avalanche on Pilsner pillar yesterday at around 1pm.

The weather forecast called for moderate winds and there are a a few new centimetres of snow available for transport. We didn’t notice the wind when we were in the Pilsner area but it’s good to remember that the start zones are quite far above the climb in a potentially different climate.

We suspect the loose dry was triggered by winds up high. We could see winds at ridge top across the valley on Mt. Field and the Bosworth telemetry recordings also support moderate winds in the alpine late morning on.

We had a couple sluffs of snow fall down over the leader and onto the approach slope which covered and filled in our tracks for about 50m below the climb.

We felt it was prudent to retreat because we couldn’t tell what the weather conditions were that caused the sluff and the uncertainty of whether it would happen again. So there’s a sweet piece of pro partway up the crux pitch 😊

Jennifer Olson MG
Lilla Molnar MG
Carla Demyen SG, ARG