Summit Elevation (m): 2483
Elevation Gain (m): 780
Trip Date: October 28 2012
Round Trip Time (hr): 3.25
Total Trip Distance (km): 5.2
Quick ‘n Easy Rating: Class 2 – You fall you sprain something
Difficulty Notes: Easy scrambling on loose scree with some route finding.
Technical Rating: SC5; YDS (Hiking)
GPS Track: Gaia
Map: Google Maps
Wietse and I were in the mood to get out of the city on Sunday, October 28 so we did just that. Originally Kev Papke was going to join us for a hike up Red Ridge, across from Mount Sparrowhawk in Kananaskis Country. Kev emailed at 04:50 to say he had a fever so it was back to the two of us. After slogging up James Walker a few weeks ago and freezing my feet off in 12 inches of snow I wasn’t sure if I was in the mood for a repeat performance. I packed my Sorel boots (good to -30) instead of my regular mountaineering boots and hoped for non-technical terrain.
As we bombed down hwy 1 for the Rockies we decided that we wanted to get home early to spend time with our families and we settled on a less ambitious goal of Little Lougheed – a locally named outlier of Lougheed II, a mountain we had both ascended earlier in the summer. We knew from Bob Spirko’s TR that Little Lougheed should pose few problems, even in winter conditions and we were right. There was much less snow than we were expecting and the bushwhack wasn’t bad either. We followed Bob’s instructions almost to the minute and found the south ridge a pleasant enough hike / scramble to recommend it.

The views were a little grey and the wind was howling pretty good up near the summit but for a short day out I highly recommend this little peak. With 800 meters height gain it’s an alternative to Ha Lin or Heart when you’re sick of repeating those ones.