I guided a three day trip on the Columbia Icefields 6-8 May 2025.

We used the Athabasca glacier for ingress and egress. In my 20 odd years of Spring trips up there, I've never seen the Athabasca glacier with so many exposed crevasses and shallow snowpack. Due to the consequently unreliable crevasse bridging, we travelled roped up far more than I ever have on past trips. We of course traversed south between the 1st and 2nd icefalls - I've never been a fan of climbing underneath Snow Dome's active serac falls.

Picture one is from below the ramp: the only way through is climber's left and the ramp is quite narrow this season due to open crevasses on either side. Once on the upper ramp transitioning to the Icefield there's plenty of snow and travel is easier.

We planned to climb a peak or two, however it blew strong-extreme from the S-SW for 36 hours straight so instead we did a tour into the Androlumbia-Andromeda basin to hide from the wind.

On the descent at the bottom of the ramp, we exited via the direct skier's left line. I probed 260 cm across the base of the ramp, and didn't see any open crevasses as we efficiently moved through the icefall zone. The descent required careful route-finding, lots of probing, and some roped travel. The penultimate steep slope was easily in the 40° range and steeper than I remember encountering. New overnight snow had prevented the upper snowpack from freezing, so I avoided the start zone by skiing downhill roped up around it.

Pic two is Skyladder which looks only Aspen Extreme skiable this year. The Silverhorn is completely bare ice.

Overall I can only recommend that highly experienced folks travel this route this season. Hopefully this isn't a sign of climate changes to come...