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Date |
Ascent Time |
Descent Time |
| 1st Time |
25 Feb 06 |
incomplete |
incomplete |
The trip up Hector Creek was a bit unusual in the sense that the trail didn't ascend the trees
on the right of the creek, as it usually does. This time, we pretty much stayed in the creek
and approached the waterfall, then went around the waterfall on the right and then up a gully
to get through the headwall. I should note that when I talk about the waterfall, I mean the
one in the middle of the picture (hard to see in the picture). The waterfall off to the left
of the picture is one that has been forming for the past few years, and seems to be forming fatter
and fatter each year. But keep in mind, it's in a prominent avalanche runout zone. While you
can't tell from below, there is a LOT of snow above it and tends to slide quite regularly.
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This is looking up the gully that breaks through the headwall. In good snow years (once),
I've been able to just skin right up this, and ski right back down this way. What you see
in this picture is rather typical. There is lots of ice in this gully, so crampons are a
good idea.
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This is Raff putting his skis on his pack and putting his crampons on so that we can walk
up the gully seen above.
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Above the headwall, views began to open up toward the west. In the extreme background in the middle
of the picture, is Mt. Balfour. The lake in the foreground is Hector Lake.
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Once above the headwall, we were able to put the skis back on our feet, and make our way toward
Hector Pass. There are two route options. You can traverse along the base of Andromache if and only if
conditions are stable. Aside from the snow on the slopes you're traversing, there are bigger slopes above
that you can't assess. While this way is faster, it's much more dangerous. The safer, but longer
way is to follow the typical route up to the toe of the Hector Glacier. Here we see Raff cutting
across some small slopes. Blair actually kicked off a slide here on one of our Mt. Hector trips.
Fortunately, it's a small slope.
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In the background, this is our first chance to look at the summit of Andromache. In the foreground is Raff.
It was not my first chance to look at him. :-)
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This is Raff with Hector Pass in the background. Unfortunately, from here, the safe route to Hector Pass
is not as straight forward as you would think. Between Raff and Hector Pass is a big bowl that was full
of iffy snow. We chose to take the high road (my motto in life), and go around the bowl. Unfortunately,
this was an extra 400ft of height gain.
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Even more unfortunate is that to go up and around that bowl meant carrying our skis. So here we see
Raff heading up with Little Hector on the right.
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This is looking at the eastern end of the unnamed peak. The two red lines show our lines of ascent
and descent. We had to carry our skis (again) up the scree slopes. The red dot on the left edge of
the picture shows where I stopped for the day. Raff continued to reach the summit of the unnamed peak.
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From the same vantage point, we see the summit of the unnamed and the summit of Andromache. Again, the red dot shows
approximately where I turned around.
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This is looking at the unnamed summit from the base of it. Raff pointed out that it kind of looks like Mt. Columbia.
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Here we see Raff making his way up the slope with Mt. Hector in the background.
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On the way down, we took a bit of a different route. In a few pictures above, where I drew the descent line,
then is Raff coming down that part. The slope was rock-hard wind crust, so rather than trusting our edges, we
put on crampons and walked down. Also on the way down, we skied across the slopes along the south face of Andromache,
which were no longer in the sun and seemed rather stable.
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