The loss of Snowpatch Spire happened some time between noon on Dec. 21 and noon the following day
The Bugaboos, a mountain range in the Purcell Mountains near the border between British Columbia and Alberta, have lost a defining feature.
The crash happened some time between noon on Dec. 21 and noon the following day, with mountain-lovers and rock fanatics quickly sharing theories, memories and photos. The precise cause isn’t known – and it may never be – but experts note that such dramatic changes are both natural and also accelerating thanks to climate change.
James Madden, a helicopter skiing guide in the area, photographed the landslide’s debris from above and provided the timeline for the rockfall. He said when the rock hit the glacier, the force pushed a wave of ice in front of it. Drew Brayshaw, a climber who is also a geoscientist with Statlu Environmental Consulting Ltd. in Chilliwack, B.C., estimated that Snowpatch shed between 30,000 and 50,000 cubic metres of rock. After examining the initial photos, he said it appears as though the rock detached along an existing failure plane, on a climb known as Bugaboo Crack.
“Extreme events increase the rate of these failures,” Mr. Elmo said. “But this failure would have happened anyway because it is just geological processes. What we’re doing is we are just accelerating the rate at which they are happening.”
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