Ice Climbing Conditions

We also went up Ranger Creek today and found the same perfect ice conditions on R&D that Larry reported earlier. We then continued up and climbed Chalice and The Blade, which was also pretty much perfect ice. Dry, steep and good placements the whole way. We climbed it in two pitches and descended in one 70 m rappel. Felt about grade 4+.

Although it was blowing all day, there was minimal wind loading going on and the surface snow remained dry and soft. There was no evidence of any recent avalanche activity. We assumed we could trigger an avalanche ourselves at higher elevations, but not where we were walking. We also concluded that while human triggering at higher elevations might be possible, we did not expect any natural avalanches from above to run over the waterfalls today.

Grant Statham and Conrad Janzen
Parks Canada