"A long journey across a cool glacier on a gorgeous day. The Angel’s Staircase requires solid route-finding and some scrambling skills, with a few possible bypasses through the trees on the climber’s right (south side). Both Takakkaw Peak and Balfour offer plenty of hands-on rock, though the quality is far from ideal—very loose and crumbly. Fairy glacier was mostly bare ice, with only a few wide crevasses, all clearly visible." — MikaM • Aug 24, 2025

"Mt Balfour - March 23, 24 2019. Made the summit of Mt Balfour in a day from Bow Lake. A 14 hour day with 2150m of elevation gain ending at Balfour hut for the night. We had great travel conditions and lucked out quite a bit with the weather - we had a solid overnight freeze (clear skies), super easy travel throughout the morning. Some clouds rolled in and kept the solar radiation minimal and the snow held up very well until late afternoon. High elevation temperatures were below freezing until about 3pm. The SW slope to gain the summit ridge was the only soft snow we had to deal with - the clouds inconveniently cleared on us for this section & baked that slope quickly while we were on it, we had to boot pack up since the wet surface was sliding on the sun crust - it was endless facets below this crust -considering the timing and heat it was at our "comfort" limit no doubt, even though a loose slide would have been pretty low consequence. Once on the ridge it was mostly smooth sailing although the solar input on the rocks made for a lot of post holing, and everywhere else the facets helped for that, ugh. The cornices were not very large and not many were overhanging, we only had to p..." — jakefinnan • Mar 23, 2019

"The day started out as a whiteout until 2pm. Climbed Lilliput from Scott Duncan hut and decided to make an attempt at Balfour from the summit of Lilliput at 330pm. Decided to avoid Chic Scott's usual route due to hot afternoon sun on the Fairy Glacier, attempted to climb the ridge proper. We encountered giant cornices, impassable rime and brutal spindrift. Barely making any progress we turned around at 630pm and returned to Scott Duncan." — BobbyG • May 2, 2017

"Weather forecast called for sunny with cloudy periods - turned out to be nearly a whiteout all day. Gained the Balfour Glacier via Hector Lake and the canyon, there was a lot of snow in the canyon and we kept our skis on the whole way. We kick stepped up a steep slope on the North side of Lilliput to get onto the Waputik. The Balfour high col was a complete whiteout and we tried to gain the summit ridge on Mt Balfour from both the South and East with no success. " — BobbyG • Apr 10, 2017