In 2007 I made my first attempt at Bident Mountain, looming high over Consolation Pass and Lakes in Banff National Park. Bident sits lower than its neighbor to the west, Quadra Mountain and higher than its neighbor to the east, Mount Bell. It took almost 17 years, but finally on April 13 2024 I stood on both summits of Bident, tackling them from a completely different direction by a completely different method. Instead of a rock ascent, this one would be on snow.
On July 24, 2009 I soloed the scramble route up Eiffel Peak in Lake Louise, Banff National Park. Technically there is a hiking restriction of a minimum part of 4 to get in this area but I simply hiked between groups of tourists that were slower than me and figured as long as I stuck with the groups, I’d be fine. There are a LOT of people on the trails in this area in the summer anyway, but you should be aware that there are stiff fines if you are hiking solo.
On our way to scramble Nigel Peak and Mount Wilcox the day before, Rod and I had noticed that Mount Temple’s northwest ridge (the scramble route) looked amazingly free of snow or ice. We were planning another day trip with Wietse for Saturday, September 15 2007 and since this was going to be my 150th peak and I’ve been waiting for the *perfect* day to do Temple, it seemed like the right objective.
The guide book is obviously out-of-date on these climbs, or at least the access to these climbs but in doing some research on the internet on Thursday night I was a bit more prepared for the actual difficulty. Both Rick Collier (bivouac.com) and Alan Kane indicated quite clearly that they consider these two mountains difficult.
On Saturday, June 30 2007, I joined Sonny, Kelly, Jess, Frank, Jason and Raf for a fun trip up Panorama Ridge near the Consolation Lakes in the Moraine Lake area of Lake Louise in Banff National Park.
