The descent was actually much easier that we expected. With the 60-meter rope and 8 mm rappel line we didn't have to build a single Ablakov rappel anchors.

As expected on the 1st Tier the ropes didn't quite make it to the ground so we downclimbed about 35 feet of about grade 3 ice. The last one down, I pulled the rope from my device and tied the "pull" end to my harness. As I downclimbed the rope pulled through the chains and belayed me somewhat. I was happy I had done all that soloing at Frankenstein earlier in the season.

We decided to retrace our steps over the saddle but we heard later that you could rappel from the top of the Pencil. Depending on the conditions this could cut as much as 45 minutes off the descent time! The picture above looks down from the top of the saddle and back towards the 1st Tier. To get here you climb along a narrow trail on the snow slope. I trailed the 8mm rappel rope which you can't see in the snow. There was no place to place protection on any of these snow climbs, trailing the rope just made me feel better!

Once below the Pencil mushroom, two more rappels and some snow slogging brought us to the base of the first real pitch where we had stashed our packs. From here a faint trail to the left led us to an easy traverse to an "otter slide" which in 5 minutes deposits you at the bottom of the hill and less than 15 minutes from the car. This picture was taken from the next-to-last rappel. You are looking North up the Icefields Parkway where, just around the bend of the road, is the Weeping Wall.