Good shoulder season trip with Wietse, Vern and Kelly. Would not want much more snow than this but worked out okay despite full on snow bizzard at the summit. Powderface trail closes on Dec 1 so one of the last weekends to try this. RT was 8.5 hrs and about 21 km and about 1100 m total elev gain. I took about 4.5 to summit. I would stick to the ridge all the way up except for the one highpoint that has an obvious trail on the west side. Sidehilling on loose rock and snow does not save any time or effort. The alternate descent worked out well and the rockband was at most moderate scrambling with snow. We bailed off the right into the trees near the bottom of the ridge to avoid the reported rock slabs in the left creekbed which we didn’t want to deal with given the snow cover.
Pictures are here Howard
Met So, Ali and Andrea in the park lot who had just done Bryant and had done Howard last week. Their pics at So’s Howard Pics and So’s Bryant pics from same day as we did Howard.
