Mount Forbes: Perfect Summer Snowpack Travel

Travelling the lower North Glacier on Mount Forbes at 7 am on Sunday we found perfect travel conditions. Having read previous trip reports of difficult travel at mid elevations we were surprised by bare glacier to 2700m, fully supportive hardback to 2900m, and only about 100 vertical meters of ankle deep penetration to the base of the NW ridge.

Travel on the ridge itself was on hard windswept slopes as far as the first rock bands, and then a combo of rubbly slopes and calf saving ankle deep penetration. To put it in perspective, we were passed at this point by two very speedy folks in their runners who started and finished their day at the trailhead.

On descent the firm slopes of the way up were softened allowing for safer walking, though we crossed onto the north face from the ridge for deeper snow. There were signs of old avalanches on this north face slope but we felt no concern given our conditions. I would leave the avalanche gear behind if I were to return immediately.

We took a much more conventional approach than the runners, camping at a tarn just below the lake at the toe of the Mons Glacier, a truly spectacular camping site, for a 3 day trip. We circumnavigated the Mons Glacier Lake and climbed above the glacial outflow creek to gain access to Forbes' lower slopes, while the runners reported a waist deep crossing of the outlet creek. On the way back we found a sneak onto the Mons Glacier a hundred meters above the lake.

All in all an amazing uncrowded wilderness peak in a beautiful setting. If this peak is any indication it seems the snowpack is set up for alpine climbing at the moment in the central Rockies.