We had decent ski mountaineering conditions today on the NW Face of Mt Begbie (Polar Bear Glacier).

We walked on the trail in hiking shoes (some snow patches) up to 1550m elevation, where we switched to skinning. Travel conditions were pretty good all the way to the summit, with skis sinking in up to 10cm. We boot packed a few sections and it was normally just soft enough to kick full steps, with a small amount of thigh deep wallowing in wet snow, plus a few sections near the top with wet snow over ice where boot crampons were useful.

There was no freeze last night due to overcast skies, so ski conditions were mostly breakable crust, summer snow or slush. Not great, but not terrible either.

We traveled over a few old windslabs below the summit that concerned us enough to space out, but otherwise we had minimal avalanche concerns this morning. On the way down, the snow was softest around treeline (near the campground), where we were able to ski cut size 1 loose wet avalanches. Below this it was well consolidated summer snow.

In first photo (closeup), you can see a party of 5 heading up the East Ridge that we saw as we were skiing down. Photo 2 is the NE Face of Mt Begbie and Photo 3 is starting up the NW Face.

Alex Geary, ACMG Mountain Guide
Jye Beach, ACMG Apprentice Ski Guide