Presentation: Cryospheric Collapse at Abbot Pass
Join Kate Hanly, recipient of the Lillian Agnes Jones Fellowship for a presentation detailing her research on Abbot Pass. Climate change is contributing to the rapid warming of mountain environments, resulting in glacial retreat, diminished snowpacks, and permafrost thaw. These changes can destabilize alpine terrain, modify climbing conditions, and increase objective hazards on mountaineering routes, threatening the safety of mountaineers and the existence of the sport. This presentation will focus on the Abbot Pass area and reveal climate-related changes recorded in the Abbot Hut registers (1923-2018) on approach routes (Death Trap, Lake O’Hara gully) and classic climbs (e.g., Mts Lefroy, Victoria) and discuss how mountaineers have adapted to these changes.
Image Description: The Death Trap, taken in summer of 1929 and August of 2022.