Abstract ID: 3.11180 | Accepted as Talk | Talk/Oral | TBA | TBA

Climate change is contributing to the rapid warming of mountain environments, resulting in glacial retreat, diminished snowpacks, and permafrost thaw. Research has demonstrated that such rapid changes have transformed mountaineering routes, altering climbing conditions and increasing objective hazards throughout the European Alps. However, there is a well-documented lack of meteorological monitoring stations in Canada’s alpine environment and of the stations that do exist, several experience challenges related to the measurement of solid precipitation. In response, this study employed a mixed-methods approach, integrating archival content analysis, statistical climatological analysis, and semi-structured interviews with mountain guides to examine the relationship between climate change, route conditions, hazards, and adaptations in the Abbot Pass area of Banff National Park, Canada. The archival analysis centered on entries from guides, mountaineers, and caretakers in the Abbot Hut registers. For centuries, hut registers have been a tool for climbers to document and share their experiences, achievements, and observations related to mountaineering, generating valuable historical accounts of mountaineering areas. By combining these archival insights with climatological analysis and interviews with mountain guides, the study highlights cryospheric changes in a data-scarce region, validating the archival records and uncovering long-term climatic shifts that have altered climbing conditions and objective hazards. While focused on a Canadian context, the findings and methodologies developed herein are relevant to other mountain geographies, where data is limited and climate change is rapidly transforming environments frequented by mountaineers.