Opal Ridge North is not a grand objective by any means. As a matter of fact, in my research to see how far up the ridge I should go to ‘officially’ nab the north summit I couldn’t find two accounts that gave the same idea of the summit.
Wow. Who would’ve thought that I’d be bagging my first scramble of the year only 6 days into it?! OK – it’s not like Grizzly Peak is such a hard or worthy adversary but for a winter scramble it does very nicely thank you.
I had decided on Friday afternoon that I would post something to the web board to see if anyone would be interested in joining me for an attempt at South Kidd the next day, Saturday November 19, 2005.
October 30, 2005 found the RMB Kane Troopers attempting to bag yet another peak before winter could prevent such outings for another season. A bunch of us (9) decided to meet at the trail head, around 0830 on Saturday morning.
The only Kane scramble in the Skoki that was left after 3 days of scrambling was Redoubt Mountain. Jon, Rod and I packed up our camp at Baker Lake early on Thursday morning, September 8 2005 to head for Boulder Pass.
A very frosty morning of September 7 2005 found Rod, Jon and I hiking out of our Baker Lake back country campsite to tackle a long day of scrambling more peaks in the Skoki region of Banff National Park.
Jon and I woke up early on September 6 2005 to clear skies and started up the trail to Hidden Lake and the slopes of Pika Peak.
Jon, Rod and I scrambled Mount Richardson under a cloudy, snowy sky on September 5. The weather didn’t look very promising at first and for most of our ascent we had no idea where the actual summit was!
On September 3 2005 I dragged my brother, Rod and two of my cousins, Tony and Jon up and around the Hawkins Horseshoe in Waterton National Park.
On August 20, 2005 Sonny and I scrambled up over 1900 meters from the town of Field, BC to the summit of Mount Stephen. The weather was a beautiful, clear 20 degrees with a light south breeze keeping us cool for most of the day.
On an early (0430) August 6 2005 morning, I joined Dave Stephens and Blair Piggot on a full day trip to scramble Mount Smuts and The Fist in Kananaskis Country.
Dave, Sonny and I walked into Stanley Mitchell hut on Friday morning and managed to negotiate steep snow slopes to Isolated’s summit that afternoon.
On Canada’s birthday I decided to celebrate by doing a scramble. Originally I had planned Isabelle Peak with Dave Stephens but when that fell through I decided to salvage the day with an easier but just as long outing.
There are two reasons why Kane rated Mount Engadine as a difficult scramble. One is the nature of the ridge itself. Long sections of ‘no-fall’ zones coupled with loose rock and tricky down climbs make this a much more difficult climb than even other difficult scrambles such as Lady McDonald.
Summit Elevation (m): 2462 Trip Date: Friday, April 15, 2005 Round Trip Time (hr): unknown Elevation Gain (m): 920 Total Trip Distance (km): 8 Quick ‘n Dirty Rating: Class 2 – you fall, you sprain something Difficulty Notes: Easy scrambling on a good trail. The hardest part might be driving to the trailhead. Technical Rating: OT4; YDS (Hiking)GPS Track: Download Map: Google Maps I’ve wanted to scramble Black Rock Mountain for a long time. It just has a cool sounding […]
Turtle Mountain became my first scramble of 2005 on a gorgeous spring-like Saturday morning in early March.
Summit Elevation (m): 2435 Trip Date: Sunday, April 10, 2005 Round Trip Time (hr): unknown Elevation Gain (m): 1050 Total Trip Distance (km): 7 Quick ‘n Dirty Rating: Class 2/3 – you fall, you sprain or break something Difficulty Notes: Moderate scrambling on the Kane route in dry conditions. Technical Rating: SC6; YDS (3rd)GPS Track: Download Map: Google Maps Third time lucky! Finally I managed to summit Sentry Mountain after two previously unsuccessful attempts. On hindsight this is not a […]
This was the third peak in a massive 3 peak day that Dave Stephens and I did. The first two summits were The Fortress and Gusty Peak.
So what does a 3am wake-up time, 14km biking, 22km walking, 4 litres of Gatorade, 5 granola bars, a dozen gummy bears and some peanut M+M’s give you?
On a beautiful late September day Sonny and I headed out to the Little Elbow Valley to scramble our way along the Glasgow to Banded Traverse.
If you haven’t done Fullerton or Fable make sure you don’t do these two mountains in the same year. If you’ve done Fable and you thought it was a long approach you better psych yourself up pretty good for Fullerton or you won’t make it!
Mount Galwey is an excellent scramble in Waterton Lakes National Park in southern Alberta. I thought it deserved its difficult rating simply because a slip on the crux would have been very painful.
Mount Yamnuska is a very fun, fast mountain. It is right in the way of the warm Chinook winds so often it is one of the first summits to be clear of snow.
Mount Tecumseh doesn’t seem like a very popular mountain. It hasn’t seen a whole lot of ascents over the past few years and I really don’t know why as I found it to be quite enjoyable.
Mount Ward was an enjoyable scramble in the Crowsnest Pass area. It presented very few difficulties and was quite easy to find.
