What an early snowpack melt means for those exploring the alpine

Hikers and mountaineers are enjoying an early start to the summer hiking season, scrambling to reach peaks and ridges weeks ahead of schedule. 

While it means more time to explore the backcountry snow-free, the shift in season comes with other difficulties.  

"I think the trend from year to year is that we're seeing more of these early melts," said Mike Adolph, technical director for the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. 

He and others in the profession are always monitoring conditions and adjusting to stay safe on excursions.

Early snow melt, Adolph said, means the biggest risk out there right now is rockfall — rocks raining down from above. That and the danger of encountering a glacier crevasse on a familiar route. 

"The traditional really good Alpine climbing season was kind of late July and into August," Adolph said.

"Now this is not even feasible anymore."

Instead, climbing prime-time has shifted, Adolph said often conditions are better between May and June.

Except, he said, that's when lingering avalanche risks are still at play.

"Things are just going to continue to be more and more hazardous as the glaciers continue to recede and we have these warmer summers," Adolph said. 

The Canadian drought monitor releases conditions across the country once a month. As of May 31, areas of the Rockies near Banff, Jasper, Golden, and Revelstoke were categorised as abnormally dry. 

While snow did fall along Alberta's Highway 93 between Lake Louise and Jasper last week, Environment and Climate Change Canada has said much of the region hasn't seen much precipitation and is coming out of a particularly dry spring. 

And that's after a dry winter. 

The Alpine Club of Canada manages backcountry huts, with many clustered in Alberta and British Columbia's mountainous regions.

Bookable for people to visit, some huts are open all year, while others aren't suitable for winter or summer travel. 

No hut is the same, Marketing and Communications Director Keith Haberl explains they are located on different mountain ranges at different elevations. But, he said, overall the shift from winter to summer has been abrupt. 

"The snowpack was pretty light over most of those ranges through this past winter, certainly compared with last winter in the previous couple of winters," Haberl said.

That means travelling to some of these huts, visitors are experiencing conditions they might expect to encounter later in the summer, mid-July, or early August. 

And it's pushing the season earlier for some of those summer-only huts, driving inquiries, and bookings. 

"More people phoning, more people asking questions, more people learning about the huts and wanting to get out to them," Haberl said.  

"It felt like summertime was full on ready to go by late May. That's a big change…we haven't seen anything, in my memory, that was a summer that started this early."