Synopsis: good snow travel and mostly dry rock ridges in the alpine around Lake Louise.

On June 27, our party started up the NE ridge on Mt. Bell. The trail to Taylor lake was mostly dry and we found good dry conditions on the ridge, save for 1-2 snow patches higher on the ridge in non-technical terrain. The descent to Lake O'Brien looked to be dry along the ridge and snow down the col, though we did not descend that way.

We descended a firm snow gully down the S side of Mt Bell and regained Consolation Pass. From here, we climbed the NE shoulder/face of Mt Bident. To get to the face, a brief, quite loose section of ridge/buttress needs to be negotiated. A small rack to #2 would actually help, since there's cracks for gear (though it's rated as 4th class in the Rockies Central book?).

We traversed the summits of Bident and Quadra and descended the North Face of Mt Quadra, which required a rappel over the shrund from a rock anchor. Climbing this route from the glacier would be tricky with the current shrund condition. We gained the Fay-Quadra col, contoured S around Mt Fay to gain the Fay-Little col from the S. This ascent was mostly on snow, though it's melting out fast. The N side of the Fay-Little col (Start of W ridge of Fay) had good coverage and on the (climbers) right hand snow slope no open bergshrund was visible yet.