this abbot's pass The cabin has stood on the rugged saddle for decades Between two iconic peaks, overlooking the clear green Banff National Park Lake Louise – Once a destination for climbers from around the world, until its underground soil melted and forced it to close.
University of Calgary Now, researchers have used a century of records in the hut’s logbooks to shed light on how climate change is erasing historic climbs, making others more dangerous and changing the face of Canadian mountaineering.
“About how climate change The impacts on the Canadian Rockies have been met with sadness and concern from many visitors to the cabins,” wrote Kate Hanly, a PhD student in geography and co-author of a paper based on the logs published in the journal Climatic Change.
“Climate change is causing changes in climbing conditions in the Canadian Rockies,” she said in an email.
The mountain guide agreed.
“The classic routes have changed,” said Paul Vidalin, president of the Canadian Mountain Guides Association and a 25-year guide.
“In some places the ice has melted away, leaving only rotten rock. What used to be a smooth glacier (ski run) is now full of cracks.”
James Gudjonson, vice president of the Alpine Club of Canada, has been guiding climbers and skiers for 30 years.
“It’s really frustrating,” he said. “You know a lot of (routes) have disappeared or are slowly disappearing and they’re not coming back.”
Hanley's paper combined 6,283 trip reports left by climbers in the Abbot Pass Hut logbook with trip reports from a modern climber database. The reports cover the period from 1923 to 2024.
Early records describe reliable, solid snow slopes on the way to famous peaks such as Mount Lefroy and Mount Victoria.
But by 2017, all climbers on Mount Lefroy reported exposed ice, and half faced exposed unstable rock. In the 50s, 5% of climbers on Mount Victoria reported encountering exposed rock, while between 2013 and 2022, more than half reported encountering exposed rock.
This rock doesn't just mean shaky footing. When the ice supporting it melts, it will fall.
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On one route to Abbot (used since the beginning of the last century), there were no dangerous rockfalls in the first 50 years after the hut was built, but three-quarters of the climbers in the past decade have reported such incidents.
Similar findings were found along another route leading to the cabin.
“The right side is a typical rockfall war zone with multiple near misses,” a 2009 log reads.
Christoph Dietzfelbinger, who has been guiding in British Columbia's Coast Mountains since the 1980s, said the threat isn't limited to Abbot Pass.
“On Mount Edziza, the ridge leading to the summit used to be a simple snow slope,” he said in an email. “Now it is a 30- to 70-meter-high blackwater ice slope that requires full alpine snow gear to climb.”
In the Bugaboos Mountains south of Golden, British Columbia, a col in one of Canada’s most famous rock climbing areas is becoming increasingly difficult to access due to declining snowpack.
“I think it’s going to end up being a place you don’t go to,” Gudjohnsson said. “It’s the gateway to dozens of routes.”
Other dangers are also growing.
Reduced snowpack and increased melting have changed the shape and angle of glaciers, making them more susceptible to avalanches. Snow bridges that help climbers safely cross crevasses have become fragile.
Gudjonson has seen the effects at the Wapta Icefield, a popular high-altitude glacier ski touring destination between Banff and Jasper, Alberta.
“Because there was so much rain and the temperatures were so high, there was no snow,” he said, “and the bridges weren’t built very well.”
“In the summer it's OK — you can see the ice. But the real problem is the thinning of the snowpack in the winter.”
In addition, areas that normally have deep, stable snowpack are now experiencing widespread snowfall, followed by a long dry spell, sometimes with rain or thaw. This can create layers of snow that make avalanche assessment more difficult.
“It’s more volatile, more extreme,” Vidarin said.
“There seem to be more layers of problems (in the snow), more variation, more complexity.”
Climate change is reducing some dangers. For example, Hanley said, thinner snowpack has shrunk the once-overhanging cornices on Victoria's southeastern ridges, making travel faster and easier.
As guides adapt, new routes may be opened.
“The only constant in the guiding industry is change,” Hanley wrote in an email. “I don’t think our country is in danger of losing its climbing culture (at least not yet), but I am fairly certain it will continue to grow.”
Hanley added that this has economic consequences.
“The hot, dry weather in January has significantly reduced ice climbing opportunities, causing some guides to lose their jobs. Guiding work is very high in the Canadian Rockies, especially in the Bow Valley, and climate change is likely to have a significant impact on this industry, with possible knock-on effects for the tourism and hospitality industries.”
Gudjohnsson noted that cross-country skiing and mountaineering have become booming industries.
“What are the consequences for commercial operators?” he asked.
But that’s not his biggest worry. He said the closure of Abbot Pass Hut in 2018 unnerved climbers and hikers.
“We have 100 years of history and some of these things are woven into the culture of the mountain community. Those historical relics are going to be lost forever.”
The guides kept talking about it, Dietzfelbinger said.
“There is something that can best be described as ecological grief,” he wrote. “The land that I cherished and where I had nurtured so many experiences had been irrevocably changed.”
