Snowpatch Spire 

Descent Information

My partner and I were on Snowpatch 24-Aug-2010. We went down the Kraus-McCarthy with two ropes, without a problem. Big rappel bolts/rings. No need to use any of the slings we saw!

The new Snowpatch Rappels descent is about 5 mins walk down and to [skier's] LEFT, down the glacier and around the corner, where you will see a large cairn on a shoulder. You will most likely need crampons at the least. All the raps are shorter than 30m, so you only need to get one rope wet! It's quite a long hike down to the hut from here with some crevasses en route as well. Note: In warm conditions, with lots of snowfall, expect this to be very WET and cold!

We recommend doing the Bugaboo-Snowpatch col descent. It's a few more minutes walk on the glacier, which is/was in pretty good shape. We rapped with a single rope for the first two raps, and then one double rope rap and walked down to the bottom of the col. If you do the first rap to the third station, your rope can get stuck and we avoided this the second time we did it. The first rap station is somewhat high and hard to see on the big boulder south of the small sign (skier's RIGHT) at the col. The second rap station is at the bottom of the rocks on skier's RIGHT. The third station is down under the [skier's] RIGHT side of the large boulder in the middle of the col. If you do the first rap with double ropes, then you might go to skier's LEFT of the large boulder and not be able to get around to it. Keep a couple of 4' slings handy, as the bolts on this last station are way up high! Note: In warm conditions, this rap is quite crazy with steep, loose mud and lots of rocks to easily knock off!

Photo of the Pigeon-Snowpatch rappels: www.mountainproject.com/v/international/north_america/canada>>>

Compliments to Sunny for a very useful comment and Kevin Craig for contributing a photo.