Neil Colgan Area August 3-6

Just returned from a 4 day trip to Neil Colgan Hut with a group from the ACC Manitoba section.
Rapid changes are taking place on the surrounding peaks with summer temperatures changing the snow approaches to Fay and Little.
The Perron approach is great value as usual. The Fay glacier has some sections of dry ice and good travel to the hut.

We experienced the storm on August 4th with about 5cm new snow and cool temperatures. With -3 degrees on 5th our group made an ascent of Mt Little using the ice slopes as the rock was snow covered from previous night.
We found a mix of ice conditions from full depth 20cm screws to 13cm while skirting the rock climbers right on the ice. There are some gear placements but hard to find high integrity rock consistently.

We felt with a few more days of heat this approach to the ridge will become increasingly active with rockfall. The ridge was dry to the summit and we descended down the ridge via the rock all the way.

Mt Perron still has snow to the ridge and very little rockfall scars.
Mt. Fay’s bergshrunds are fairly gapping and rockfall zones evident. (See pic)
Bowlen was a perfect second summit of our climbing day.

Wishing everyone a happy August.

Merrie-Beth Board MG
Erica Roles MG
Hannah Preston AAG/RG