J
Jay Meyer
Guest
Lots of snow! Even the Tucks Trail has soft surface conditions, although this may change with warmer weather during the coming week. The Lion's Head Trail is packed, but only in a narrow trench; my axe often plunged all the way in on the side of the trail. The southern snowfields have deep powder in places, but the trail there is fairly obvious and much firmer than the surrounding snow. On Sunday the humidity and temperature were pretty high, resulting in clouds and lots of balling on my crampons (many others on the route commented on this). The rocks on the summit cone and elsewhere are filled in well although there is ice in a few spots above the Lion's Head. I wore crampons from the fire road up to the summit, but barebooting would be feasible above the Alpine Garden. From above, the bowl looked full of snow and there was a bit obvious fracture line; keep a wary eye for avy hazards on gully routes.