Thanks for the post Kevin. You are an excellent story teller! That looks like a nasty gouge out of your ski. Not quite down to the core I hope. Great intel on the Rockies. We need some snow out here in the Interior too by the way.

Hey Kevin, great intel. 15-20 ski pen is more than we have in the kootenay at the moment, what is the base currently at? just wondering how this winter is stacking up against previous as I am hoping to attempt a ski trip to Mt. Columbia in the spring and wondering how long the glacier and cracks will be covered? Want to go late enough so the storms subside and it warms a bit but not too late.

Great pics!

Thanks!  Ya, I'm pretty impressed the PFD's weren't completely core-shotted.  That was about 240lbs coming down hard and fast on pointy slab of limestone.  A lesser ski would've exploded.  1.5 sticks of p-tex later and they're as good as new!

Yikes, sorry to hear about the Kootenays.  We're heading to Sol in a few weeks so I hope things improve by then!  In terms of base, I'd call it around 1m of settled snow in the alpine west of the divide in Banff right now.  In terms of coverage on glaciers, dunno, I suspect it's quite variable though.  In most years, conditions on the high glaciers are often good well into May (sometimes June), long after the valleys have gone to hell.  

Here's a report on the MCR from Mt. Hector.  Not the same area as the Athabasca but possibly gives an idea what's going on up there:

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Climbed Mt. Hector today (Jan 22) via the north glacier.

The wind has been hard at work in this area and there seems to be no soft snow left. Hard slabs, soft slabs and scoured earth are the norm. Despite this, we had a great day with very light winds, sunny skies and temperatures in the -15 range. Snow depths on the glacier vary from 20 to 160cm with a few patchs of bare ice showing. Many crevasses are still visible and we made use of a rope on the way up. Crampons and ice axe were helpful for the final summit block. No new avalanches were observed today, but there is evidence of a large cornice failure near the toe of the glacier that looks to be about a week old.

Have fun out there!

Jeremy Mackenzie 
ACMG/IFMGA Mountain Guide 
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Check out the MCR here if you're interested.  Always good info on the informalex:

http://www.acmg.ca/mcr/archives.asp

Thanks for that Kevin, good intel.

That pretty much sounds like Hector any year! I was in there two years ago and it was pretty much the same, also returned with some nice souvenirs on the bases of my skis. You guys must be pros at using P-text out there?