Spent 3 nights at Bills Pass and saw a couple of headlights in the far distance once. The glacial recession has been rough on the Vowells access. It was a bit of a project to reach the Archduke Trio from Bills Pass and that project will get spookier as the snow melts. The Trio itself still felt "Au Naturel" with almost no signs of traffic(lots of lichen and some loose blocks around) and no fixed gear except sun bleached rap slings. Fabulous adventure route but it is complex, committing and requires a lot of micro routefinding and "frigging with the rigging".

We started to descend from Bills Pass to reach the West Vowell Glacier and Centre peak but turned around due to rockfall concerns. The route would go mostly on snow and ice at this point but the slopes above the lower part of that route were way too freshly melted out, strewn with big boulders and unstable for my tastes.

Getting from Bills Pass onto the main Vowell glacier only felt "reasonable" by crossing the frozen lagoon. This was "sporty" and will soon be impossible. It is possible to sidehill gouge around the lagoon but once again, the rockfall hazard on the recently de-iced slopes is high!

The Vowells is a great place but it is a hard place to travel safely in summer even in good weather. In a hard rain or melting snow I would Really limit my exposure to the freshly raw ground. Also we had near constant moderate winds at Bills Pass and mostly light winds while up high. I assume the Bills Pass wind was filling the vacuum left by the cold air flowing down the Vowell. The ice is melting but it is still BIG glacier country.

My respect for and fear of rockfall just keeps growing. I am bummed by the decreasing opportunities but grateful for that awareness.

Larry Stanier
Mountain Guide