Bugaboo Trip 1998, this year was a wicked year for weather. We had blue sky, hot days, awesome views with great climbs.
The approach to the hut went great. In for lunch, and out to go and climb. Alison Denis joined us for the weekend. Her first climb that season. Josee getting the weekend off from the Tourism Bureau. Kelly from Guiding. Our objective was something good, and it could not be missed, McTech Arete. We were standing below the climb and decided to leave what we dont need here on the Glacier for the way down. Sorry no picks on the route.
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Day 2: SE Corner of Snowpatch Spire IV5.6: This is the notch that is described in the guidebook.
That summer was so warm, all the snow had melted away revealing all the ice and rock debris on top of the ice. The bugaboo book mentioned 1 hour to reach the notch on the south shoulder. We went hard and got there in 2 hours. If there was snow to kick steps and go, I can see it taking 1 hour. But to have scree on ice moving and sliding as you try to push forward, really slows down the pace.
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Snowpatch Spire : SE Corner route starts bottom left corner in the notch
The route descends a little ways until an easy ramp take you back to the ridge but higher up. The next two pitches are kind of on the other side. Moving down and traversing to a corner heading back up right to the ridge again. This time below the snow-patch. One more pitch takes you beside the snow for four or five rope lengths on 5th class scrambling. |
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Alison, Having a little rest after the big scramble.
The slabs beside the Snowpatch are so cool. Very solid and easy traveling, most of the time hand were not needed. Man could you imagine having a mountain bike up there riding on solid rock doing wild stunts on the side of a mountain like this. |
Alison, Josee, Kelly : South Summit of Snowpatch Spire 3063m : The Howser Towers (back grnd)
From the top of the slabs, behind the large rock. The route becomes quite interesting in route finding. Traverses to steep face climbing on pins, wild off widths that make you cry. Topping out on this mountain was something I have dreamed of doing. For the many years that I have been coming to the Bugaboos and not getting the chance to climb Snowpatch, well here we are, on the top of the world for our moment here in time. |
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Alison & Josee : Summit of Snowpatch Spire : Bugaboo spire (back grnd)
There was no breeze that day, not even on the summit. We stayed up there for three quarters of an hour. The views were mesmerizing and freezing us to the summit. Taking picture was not very hard. Everywhere we looked was another outstanding picture. I really liked the view of Bugaboo spire from this summit. |
Kelly & Josee summit Snowpatch Spire : The Howser Towers (back grnd)
Sitting on the summit in love with one another, Josee and I wish life would never end right now. It wasnt long before we all felt like we spent the time we needed to get our fix for being on the summit. We called it and took our last pictures of the huge views.
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Rappelling the Kraus-McCarthy Route
Topping out on the one route, leaves you sitting on the first rap station down the other side. Rapping down existing routes was huge, Nice looking cracks and flakes. I must come and climb the west face. The belays were nice old pins and tat. That would look much better with a bolted rap route, no chains, but the FIXE hanger/ring combo. (My thought not yours) The stations are pretty good to rap on, the ledges are comfortable to hang out on for the next person. Crossing the glacier at the base of the rappel toward the col, we came across something incredible. The slope below the col was all ice.
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Josee working her way through the crevasses visible from the hot summer that year.
From past years walking up this with tons of snow, to know with no snow, I remembered that there was a bolted rap station far left of the slope, if looking down. There was a small switch-backing trail in the loose gravel, beside the ice. The first rap station came into sight, then the next. Then a huge noise, we looked up and saw a rock, TV size, rolling down past us. We got to the bergschrund, not exactly sure how we were going to cross. A huge car size rock was jammed in the schrund; we hopped on top and walked across, hopped out. That year there were two bergschrunds; we had to make this big traverse sideways on the edge of the other big crack, to get a clear way down the slope. Good thing nothing rolled down at that moment. Crossing the crescent glacier that is usually covered in snow. There were big boulders on ice, crack and more cracks. The decent from the top of the col to here was almost two hours of intense exposure.
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Snowpatch Bugaboo Col.
When we were very close to reaching the moraine ridge that heads back down to the hut appeared, we glanced back at the crazy col that we were at and saw this. (Picture) That night we were so bagged from a 16-hour round trip day that we could barely move to prepare our dinner. We ate our food and crashed big, and very quickly. That same day Fred Becky arrived to look at a new route on Snowpatch. He had many stories to tell wile hanging out at the hut. |
Applebee Dome Campground : Count the tents
The next morning we decided that we were to tired to go climb another route, so we decided to scramble the small East Post spire 2697 m. We headed up the murrain ridge with burning legs. We arrived at the Applebee campground in twenty minutes and decide to go visiting the people hanging out. We left for the saddle at the far left side of the mountain. There was a pretty good trail up the slope. The trail was very gravely sandy, something that made it hard to go up.
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Kelly trying to pull off the unthinkable.
We came across a great flat toped rock that we used to take some pictures. Snowpatch was so lit up by the sun and we could not resist. I tried to do the unthinkable and stand on my hands on the edge of this mountain. Luckily I never completed the full handstand, I may of fell over and off the end of the big rock.
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The final drive to the Summit of East Post Spire 2687m
The ridge proved too extremely fun. Lots of small boulder problems and possible craging spot for one pitch climbs. Parts of the ridge were so narrow we all got butterflies moving around. The final push to the summit was a nice knobby face of low angle rock. The climbing was definitely class 5 scrambling. The decent would prove to interesting. What a view up there. Being able to look at both Snowpatch and Bugaboo from quite high up was really something I wanted to do for a long time.
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Kelly posing on the summit of East Post Spire
I looked for a picture that had to be really wild and exposed. I spotted a narrow spot not far off but on the summit. I down climbed a narrow spot and climbed back up to the top. This is the final picture of the position I put myself in that day. I went back and forth three times with cameras, so I could take pictures the other way.
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Josee and Alison on the Summit of East Post Spire.
I was standing their taking a picture of the girls and found myself liking every minute of this day. We met a dad and his two kids on the summit. At that point they were looking at the down climb and wasnt sure how they were going to do it. Luckily we brought along a couple prussic cords and tied them to the summit. Tied knots in the rope all the way down. We covered 10 meters with the two 6 meter cords. We were short 4 or 5 meters. But that was the easy part and the kids got down safe. I was the last one down and untied the rope and down climbed.
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