The loose rocks left behind will be a hazard for anyone walking in the area for years to come, says mountain guide James Madden
Tim McAllister, who also guides in the park, said he felt dismay when he learned of the rockfall.
McAllister said while dozens of climbing routes on the west side of the spire are still intact, it was a “special chunk” that fell off. He said his friend Will Stanhope, a climber and mountain guide, free climbed the Tom Egan Memorial Route with partner Matt Segal, which is now gone.Marc Piche, who has co-authored several guidebooks on the Bugaboos, said Snowpatch Spire was one of the last spires to be climbed in the mountain range.
“The Bugaboos have kind of got a long history of pretty major rockfalls,” he said. “It just seems like it’s inevitable that there will always be big rockfall events up in the mountains, in particular in the Bugaboos.” Two landslides on Joffre Peak in Joffre Lakes Provincial Park in 2020 had a combined volume of five million cubic metres, says an analysis published in the Journal of the International Consortium on Landslides.There have been “major temperature swings” in the region, creating cracks in granite that expand as water freezes, causing portions of rock to break off, he added.
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