Rockies

Originally my plans were to get up very early on a holiday Monday morning and finally bag Mount Ogden in Yoho National Park. I wanted to leave early so I could beat some of the long weekend crazies driving back to YYC in the afternoon. I woke up at 04:30 and promptly shut down my alarm and rolled over. Apparently that wasn't happening!

Andrew Nugara had told me about a new peak he was adding to his latest guidebook already in 2016 in exchange for some of my photos in said book. He claimed that the views both on route and on the summit of this peak were some of the best he'd ever had in the Rockies - an opinion us peakbaggers seem to have alarmingly often about every new peak we ascend! :)

I capped an awesome 9 days off in July 2017, with a long-sought adventure up the distant, obscure and somewhat neglected Cataract Peak, just across the Pipestone River Valley in Banff National Park. This mountain has been on my radar for many years now.

A beautiful line of snow highlights the ridge to the summit cap of Spreading Peak, and it looks pretty easy from almost any angle. The issue - as with any peaks in this part of the Siffleur Wilderness - is access. There is no quick or easy way to access the gorgeous summits in this area. Or is there?

After a very successful and somewhat tiring 5 day trip with my daughter in which we traveled approximately 57km and over 4500m of height gain, I was ready to put my feet up for the remainder of my week off. Then Phil texted me...

KC and I awoke to yet another day of brilliant sunshine at the Lake of the Horns, on the last day of our 5 day backpacking trip along the south Highwood peaks on the Great Divide. Our plans for the day would be to follow a horse outfitters trail that was rumored to circle towards our last peak of the trip - The Hill of the Flowers.

After a few intense days of backpacking and scrambling five summits, Kaycie and I were ready for a relaxing day by a gorgeous and remote backcountry lake. Lake of the Horns is situated in a deep bowl between Mount McPhail and Horned Mountain along the Great Divide in the southern Elk Range of the Canadian Rockies.

Mount McPhail's huge south scree face had been calling my name ever since I first glimpsed it from Mount MacLaren a few days previous. Now that we were sitting right under it (after traversing Mount Muir and descending to Weary Creek Gap), it seemed wrong not to at least give it a shot!

After a nice, relaxing day spent ascending Mount Strachan before chilling at Carnarvon Lake, Kaycie and I woke up early on Monday morning to tackle Mount Muir and our highline traverse to Weary Creek Gap. The idea was to take full backpacks up and over Mount Muir and down towards Weary Creek Gap which would be our home for another night.

After a brutally long day the day previous, Kaycie and I awoke at our bivy on Carnarvon Lake ready for a much more relaxed day. Thanks to knocking off not only the 11km, 700m gain approach but also the neighboring summits of Mount MacLaren and Shankland, we had a much easier second day planned.

After approaching Carnarvon Lake via Carnarvon Creek and setting up camp, KC and I completed the easy scramble up nearby Mount MacLaren. We made the decision to traverse under the false peak of MacLaren towards the first peak on the traverse to Mount Shankland.

The route up MacLaren started straight out of our tent on the western edge of the lovely Carnarvon Lake, and soon KC and I were grunting up grass and scree on the lower part of the ridge above the lake. It was hot and it was windy. It felt wonderful to have pretty light packs on after our lengthy approach that morning.

For our father / daughter backpacking trip in the summer of 2017, Kaycie and I eventually settled on a 5 day, 4 night backpacking and peak bagging trip around the Carnarvon Lake / Weary Creek / Lake of the Horns area of the High Rock Range in Kananaskis Country along the Great Divide.

Doing both Watermelon Peak and Bobac Mountain as a day trip is like having a really, really good meal, but in several mind-altering bites instead of over several hours. Even though the longer meal is usually the preferred way to enjoy a palette explosion, sometimes you want to enjoy all the same flavors of a long, slow meal in a few compressed, heavenly bites. And that is exactly what we got on this trip.

I agree with Liam that it's important to break free of the lightweight, hustle bustle, go-as-fast-as-you-can mentality of our modern culture. That's what backpacking with my daughter next week is all about. That is not, however, what this particular trip was going to be all about. This trip was about overloading the senses with nature and wild landscapes in one long, compressed day while traveling as efficiently as possible.

After enjoying a Kane difficult scramble on Divide Mountain with Liz and Mike on Friday, I choose to go solo on a Nugara difficult for Saturday, July 8 2017. Mount McGillivray has been on my hit list for many years already. I first heard of it in 2003 when the Nugara brothers attempted it from the east. I don't know how many times I've driven past the mountain over the last 14 years, wondering why the heck I hadn't done it already?! It was time to find out.

On Friday, July 7 2017 I finally managed to get out with a couple of Facebook friends that I had never actually met in person. I met Liz and Mike at the gate blocking the old highway 1A near the Lake O'Hara parking lot for an attempt at one of the newest Alan Kane scrambles, rated difficult. Kane mentions Divide Mountain in an interview with Gillean Daffern as one of his new favorites.

After an easy day on Mount Stelfox, Mike Mitchell and I were pretty excited to find a scramble route up it's higher northern neighbor - Bright Star Peak. As far as we knew there are no recorded scramble ascents of this peak and as it turns out there is good reason for the lack of beta on this peak.

When our plans for climbing Mount Lefroy fell through, Mike and I started looking at other options. After swearing that I was done with David Thompson Country for at least a few months, I found myself planning another trip to the area. Our plans for the Sunday and Monday were to scramble Mount Stelfox, spend Sunday night camping and then attempt to find a scramble route up Bright Star Peak, it's higher neighbor to the north.

There aren't many published scramble reports on Abraham Mountain, but the few that are published make it sound pretty arduous and exhausting. I couldn't for the life of me, figure out why. It measures less than 11km round trip with about 1600m of height gain. There is no long approach and no mention of heinous bushwhacking either. How can it be such an exhausting trip? Only one way to find out!