St. Mary's Glacier Conditions
Forum rules
- This is a mountaineering forum, so please keep your posts on-topic. Posts do not all have to be related to the 14ers but should at least be mountaineering-related.
- Personal attacks and confrontational behavior will result in removal from the forum at the discretion of the administrators.
- Do not use this forum to advertise, sell photos or other products or promote a commercial website.
- Posts will be removed at the discretion of the site administrator or moderator(s), including: Troll posts, posts pushing political views or religious beliefs, and posts with the purpose of instigating conflict within the forum.
For more details, please see the Terms of Use you agreed to when joining the forum.
St. Mary's Glacier Conditions
Hey all, has anyone been up to St. Mary's recently? I need to get out and practice self arrest this weekend. Always heard about St. Mary's being excellent for that, but I've never been over there before and am not sure how the conditions for practicing self arrest are. Any reports of recent conditions are appreciated, as well as suggestions for other areas to go with good conditions. Thanks!
-
- Posts: 313
- Joined: 3/22/2008
- Trip Reports (0)
Re: St. Mary's Glacier Conditions
Here is a shot of the glacier from Yankee Hill last night at 6pm, as the storm was rolling in.
There are a couple posts in 13er Information/Conditions for James Peak too. 3/4 mile hike to the glacier, from the $5 pay parking lots. We are forecast for chances of snow into next week, and it is snowing now, albeit very little. Expect windy conditions.Re: St. Mary's Glacier Conditions
Thank you very much for the update!
- wtrimble
- Posts: 16
- Joined: 4/18/2012
- 14ers: 55
- 13ers: 11
- Trip Reports (0)
Re: St. Mary's Glacier Conditions
I was up on the glacier last Sunday teaching a friend of mine how to self-arrest. It's a decent place to practice. Last Sunday the snow quickly deteriorated due to the super warm temperature. We started out practicing self-arrest around 8:30am and after that we tried to climb up one of the steeper chutes roped up for more practice, but we bailed out about three quarters of the way up because the snow was getting too unstable. We headed down and as we were leaving (noonish) we saw a skier trigger a small soft slab avi. I'm guessing with the lower temps and the current conditions I think you would be fine this weekend.
- Attachments
-
- The skier cut the slope which started the fracture on the right side of the image.
- soft-slab-slide.jpg (53.33 KiB) Viewed 1647 times
- Deadshot
- Posts: 2
- Joined: 9/20/2012
- Trip Reports (0)
Re: St. Mary's Glacier Conditions
Heading up in two weeks. Thanks for the update as well.
“There are as many answers to that one as there are reasons men hunt, fight, skydive, gamble or take up with redheaded ladies”
Peter Hathaway Capstick
Peter Hathaway Capstick
Re: St. Mary's Glacier Conditions
DS - the picture that wtrimble posted is from April 27, 2012. I doubt that the picture represents current conditions. I unfortunately do not have any current updates, but from past experience and current snowfall (or lack thereof), I would anticipate little if any snow.Deadshot wrote:Heading up in two weeks. Thanks for the update as well.
"...cause I got changed by what I've been shown, more glory than the world has known, keeps me ramblin' on..." - Josh Garrels (Farther Along)
Re: St. Mary's Glacier Conditions
Indeed. Time stamp is crucial.
Check these 2 out. It's not much but better than nothing:
http://www.backcountrycoalition.com/for ... hread/427/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.backcountrycoalition.com/for ... hread/442/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Check these 2 out. It's not much but better than nothing:
http://www.backcountrycoalition.com/for ... hread/427/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.backcountrycoalition.com/for ... hread/442/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Didn't I ever tell you.....Bumble's bounce!!!
http://exploringtherockies.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.berthoudpass.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
@snow_nerd
http://exploringtherockies.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.berthoudpass.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
@snow_nerd
- Deadshot
- Posts: 2
- Joined: 9/20/2012
- Trip Reports (0)
Re: St. Mary's Glacier Conditions
Yeah, I think we are going to hold off a bit longer. Thanks for the heads up. Much appreciated.COBuckeye wrote:DS - the picture that wtrimble posted is from April 27, 2012. I doubt that the picture represents current conditions. I unfortunately do not have any current updates, but from past experience and current snowfall (or lack thereof), I would anticipate little if any snow.Deadshot wrote:Heading up in two weeks. Thanks for the update as well.
“There are as many answers to that one as there are reasons men hunt, fight, skydive, gamble or take up with redheaded ladies”
Peter Hathaway Capstick
Peter Hathaway Capstick
- ETA
- Posts: 71
- Joined: 6/27/2009
- 14ers: 56
- Trip Reports (6)
Re: St. Mary's Glacier Conditions
I just saw this post, here's a picture from 10/14/12. It's pretty sad to say the least. It's snowing now, but don't expect much area to play for a while.
[/img]
[/img]
3 or 4 miles, can't be much further than that.
Re: St. Mary's Glacier Conditions
Hello,
Has anybody been there in the past few weeks? Possibly enough snow to practice self-arresting on?
Thanks for any info!
Has anybody been there in the past few weeks? Possibly enough snow to practice self-arresting on?
Thanks for any info!
- bergsteigen
- Posts: 2391
- Joined: 6/14/2008
- 14ers: 58 52 18
- 13ers: 538 100 12
- Trip Reports (237)
- Contact:
Re: St. Mary's Glacier Conditions
It doesn't matter what has happened in the last few weeks. The ice is virtually gone. And I mean gone! I was last there in early Sept, and there was no ice on the front headwall, an the flatter section had dangerous ice bridges that could collapse at any point. St Mary's will not be viable until much much later in the year, if not next March-spring.scramble wrote:Hello,
Has anybody been there in the past few weeks? Possibly enough snow to practice self-arresting on?
Thanks for any info!
http://otinasadventures.com/index.php?t ... ys_glacier
"Auto racing, bull fighting, and mountain climbing are the only real sports ... all others are games." - Ernest Hemingway (or was it Barnaby Conrad?)
Your knees only get so many bumps in life, don't waste them on moguls!
“No athlete is truly tested until they’ve stared an injury in the face and come out on the other side stronger than ever” -anonymous
http://otinasadventures.com @otina
Your knees only get so many bumps in life, don't waste them on moguls!
“No athlete is truly tested until they’ve stared an injury in the face and come out on the other side stronger than ever” -anonymous
http://otinasadventures.com @otina
- TCUTED
- Posts: 75
- Joined: 7/25/2011
- Trip Reports (4)
- Contact:
Re: St. Mary's Glacier Conditions
We just hiked up the glacier this past weekend on my way to James Peak, the glacier is in pretty sad shape, especially considering the shape it was in last year, but its not as terrible as the previous post mentioned, and after looking at the pictures in that link, I can say that it has improved a lot, especially towards the top. We saw one skier that day, and we managed to get in a few short runs for glissade and self arrest practice. The best practice was the snow in rock outcrops on the left edge of the bottom of the glacier, the whole right side is still all melted out. A little bit of practice higher up, above the ice mountains. That being said, it's not anywhere near the condition it was at this time last winter, there are lots of large ice blocks, and a couple of deep holes that you wouldn't want to fall into. Pretty sad near the bottom, I included an image with a comparison to last year.
I hope these help, not in great shape, but you could squeeze out a little practice if you look hard enough!
I hope these help, not in great shape, but you could squeeze out a little practice if you look hard enough!