Saturday we traversed the 5 peaks surrounding Wedgemount Lake. A few photos below to get an idea of conditions. Not much snow en-route to the top of cook but a tiny bit of running water. Scrambling on the NW (?) Ridge from Cook to the top of Weart is fantastic if a bit loose. Descended the scrambles route to the Wedge-Weart Col. Snow patches and lots of water flowing around here.

Followed old steps up the low route to NE Arete of Wedge. Looking down the higher route, the shrund that usually bars access is still quite well bridged. Arete was fine, we had to wander a bit to avoid some rock outcrops but stuck on snow the whole way. Snow is disappearing quickly however.

Mental crux of the day was descending the scrambles route on Wedge - don't wish that on anyone. Just a small snow patch - otherwise just scree.

Lots of water at Wedge-Parkhurst Col. No snow on Parkhurst (just scree). Quick up-down from Parkhurst-Rethel Col to tag Rethel. Descending scrambles route from Parkhurst-Rethel Col was pretty horrible. Very loose, sandy, wet gullies between snow patches. Only a little bit of snow. Scooted around skiers left side of the lake and waded through the outflow. Down the first boulder gully and intersected the trail in the avalanche debris area.

Wedgemount Glacier is totally bare at the bottom - with a weird collapsed hole. Snow on the upper section looks well crevassed. It looks like you could approach the Wedge-Weart Col by sticking to the left edge of the glacier and avoid most of the sketchy crevasses. Overall things are looking very August/September like. Bare ice and big shrunds.

Photos:
1) NF of Wedge from Parkhurst
2) Descent gullies from Parkhurst-Rethel Col
3) View of Weart from NE Arete. Not sure why its upside down.
4) Wedge NE Arete - we stayed on snow.
5) Wedge glacier - bare ice on the lower half.

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Holy ****

Anyway, I'm really glad you post here. I do get a kick out of seeing your long distance scramble/mountain run trips. That first pic is great.

Thanks! This site is a good resource for conditions photos/planning so I try to remember to return the favour once and a while. If you are interested in more of the mountain running/athletic side of things I post more of that on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skiericcarter

Also - I forgot to mention, both the Wedge and Weart summit registers are in really rough shape. I didn't have space to carry anything down but if anyone is planning on going up, both could use a new write-in-the-rain notebook and even new containers (Weart register is a thermos).

Thanks for the information! It's nice to see a report that has important route information that's actually useful for other people instead of useless narcissistic ramblings/b.s. Appreciated. lol.
Just venting a bit sorry! In general I find many of the TR's on this site are watered down with personal info. instead of useful information such as in this report. Colourful writing is fine but it's nice to get some pertinent information as well such as snow conditions and road information. Much appreciated! Looks like fun. Thanks!

Thanks for the excellent conditions update.


Is it my imagination, or is the lake level way down lower than typical ?


K

K - The lake level is normal. We had to wade the outflow on our way back around. It appears that the glacier snout has just receded back away from the lake (and even the smaller newly formed upper lake) significantly.

Wow, that's a big day. Great photos. I'm guessing you find water along the way instead of packing it all up? What else do you consume on a day like that? (electrolytes? real food? energy gels?)

I'd agree, thanks for posting

Thanks. Yes, definitely scooping up water as we go. The area has significant water sources so I never carried more than 1.5L at a time but probably drank between 6 and 7L throughout the day.

I left the car with 300ml in a soft flask on my shoulder strap which got me to the creek crossing near the top of the trail. There we filled up all our flasks and platypus bag. I refilled a flask when we crossed the shrund between cook and weart from a meltwater drip. The Wedge-Weart col has flowing water so we drank up and refilled there. The descent off wedge has water so more refilling there. Then drank a bunch from the outflow of the lake. If there is less water available, like the howe sound crest trail, I'd certainly carry more.

I put electrolyte tabs in about half of my water on a hot day. I've never gotten sick drinking untreated from streams in BC but I wouldn't drink standing water.

Food depends on the objective, if we are not in a hurry and more just out for fun, I carry more real food - a burrito or some pizza. If we are racing or in a hurry, its all gels and bars. The Feed Zone Cookbook is a good place to get high energy real food ideas so when I can convince my girlfriend to make something from that it is awesome.

^Thanks for the info. I've started using more electrolytes (I wasn't using any at all,) and it definitely has helped on hot days.

Any estimates how long the NE Arete will be climbable? I was hoping to climb it at the end of July solo, but by the looks of it, the snow won't last long...

Maybe you could put up a TR once in awhile and show us some conditions and share some of this information then?

Snow might not last much longer. Not sure if there is ice under there or just rock. Its not very steep so I think scrambling up on the rocks would be fine. We considered it but the rocks are a bit loose. If you had helmets and went one at a time on the rocks it would likely be pretty reasonable.

That is a huge loop, I couldn't imagine doing Cook and Weart when I only did the other 3 as a loop.


Your trip up in the Place Glacier area looked awesome and that has moved high up my list thanks to seeing it on your Facebook page.

I would be alone so I'm not worried about others knocking down rocks, I thought near the top it was 40-50* for a short part, would the rocks also be that steep? Or is that how the snow forms?