Elevation:
Height Gain:
Location:
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10,023 ft (3055M)
2,100 ft (640M)
Wapta Icefields
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Note for 31 Mar 01:
Rob Maiman and I left Bow Hut under stormy skies, which eventually turned to white-out
conditions. By the time we got to the north end of North Rhondda, visability was down to 10 yards.
Nonetheless, we pressed on and made the summit under less than ideal conditions. Temperatures
were around the freezing mark, but the wind was very intense. For the ski back to the hut, we
basically "felt" our way along the slopes of North and South Rhondda. Once we reached the rocks
at the south end of South Rhondda, we turned (via compass) to Bow Hut. As we started our ski down
to the hut, the skies began to clear. Still a good day.
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This picture was actually taken from the summit of Crowfoot Mtn, but it shows the
route quite nicely from the Bow Hut. It's a good thing that I took the picture then
instead of waiting for the day I actually summitted North Rhondda. Rob and I did it
in a white-out, and good pictures were hard to come by. 
As you can see, the weather was quite different on the day we did North Rhondda.
This is us approaching the "notch" between North and South Rhondda. We ended up
coming a little too high toward the notch. The north end of South Rhondda is an
icefall, so we had to drop down a little bit to get around the cravasses. From there,
we angled up to the top of the northern ridge of North Rhondda. As we did this, the
weather got worse.
Finally, we made the summit. The wind was howling, and everything was freezing. A couple of
quick summit photos of me and Rob, and we were on our way down.
This time is Rob's turn. Notice how his rope coils aren't as tidy as mine :-)
It's a rock!!! This was a welcome sign. As the white-out continued, we decided to
feel our way along the slopes of North and South Rhondda. We new that we would eventually
come across some rocks on the south end of South Rhondda. From there, we took a compass
bearing to the hut, and pressed on across the Wapta.
