Joffre Lakes April 13, 2021 from Lee Lau on Vimeo.
We got going somewhat early at 8am to grab the last parking spots at a very crowded Duffey Lake. This wasn't at all surprising for such a cold, clear pretty day. We quckly lost the crowds by moving one ridge and one glacier over ultimately only seeing one other group.
Peter provided the cultural impetus for our explorations today as we navigated a new to us ridgeline approach that turned out to work very well in these superb condictions. It wouldn't be good in bad weather or poor light or high winds but in this perfect day it was fast travel. It set us up for this mini-Gipfelglueck ramp which we had to ourself. (Gipfelglueck : Trans: Summit Happiness).
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After hammering that slope a quick transition brings us to a nice planar 45 degree N facing wall which we've dubbed the Berlin Wall. It's got a convexity protecting the slope which tends to freak out people so we found it trackless. We remedied that lack to tracks by mogulling it then headed out again with perfect conditions and having only seen one other group (Junichi kindly sent us video) All in alll today the stability, the powder and the weather was of acceptable quality
