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Tag : SC5

Saddle Mountain (Livingstone Traverse)

My 200th summit!! OK – not a very impressive summit but it’s a milestone that I’m quite proud of. Not many folks get up 100 summits in their lifetime and I was about to stand on my 200th! In order to get 200 summits you have to burn a LOT of calories, walk a LOT of kms and take a LOT of extra breaths! It’s also been a lot of adventures and a lot time spent pondering life and it’s many aspects.

Livingstone, Mount (Livingstone Traverse)

After hiking up and down Coffin Mountain in just over 2 hours, we were feeling pretty good about our chances for a 5 peak day. As we waited for the people we spotted in the parking lot to catch up to us I noted that the sun was started to feel very hot. The climb up Mount Livingstone was looking like it would have us sweating, especially with no wind in the trees and the sun directly on our backs!

Coffin Mountain (Livingstone Traverse)

Our first peak of the day was Coffin Mountain. In order to facilitate a car-to-car traverse of these peaks, we drove two vehicles to the area. Wietse left his car at the end of the traverse, near the entry for Windy Peak and we all piled in my car for the short drive to the Coffin Mountain trail head. Apparently we didn’t read the instructions very good because the access road to Coffin was a bit more of a bush road than we were expecting!

Snow Peak

I did something on Saturday, May 16th that I’ve never done before. I bagged a peak on skis on the May long weekend! Wietse and I had already made two half-hearted attempts at Snow Peak near Burstall Pass in Kananaskis Country over the winter of 2009. Finally on May 16th we decided that we’d had enough of this ‘easy’ peak and ended up summiting in perfect conditions in around 7 hours, round trip.

Heart Mountain & Grant MacEwan Peak

Heart Mountain is an easy but fun scramble – and extremely popular. Since there was still no snow Jeff and I tackled this one in November 2001 and I repeated it along with Grant MacEwan again in January of 2009 as the same loop route.

Table Mountain

Friday, November 7 2008 found me with a free day. I was just finished my contract with the City of Calgary and waiting to start my new one with a different company. Part of me wanted to get out and do something but the other, equally motivated part of me wasn’t motivated to do anything but sleep in! So that’s exactly what I did. I slept in till 08:00 and by the time my day was under way it was already 09:30. But what a day it was!

Loaf Mountain

On Saturday, October 18th 2008 Wietse, Naomi and I tagged the summit of Loaf Mountain in the East Castle area, just north of Waterton National Park. Due to a seasonal closure of the road that leads to the normal trail head, we had to walk an additional 4 km each way from a locked gate. This resulted in more exercise but also prevented us from bagging more than one peak, simply because time and energy wouldn’t allow for it. You can do Spionkop Ridge along with Loaf if you have the energy / time. You can also to Drywood Mountain and Loaf if you’re so inspired.

Og & Cave Mountain

To get to Og Mountain, we first had to hike along the Windy Ridge trail from the Assiniboine Lodge area and our Naiset hut. After getting some sublime morning sunrise shots of Mount Assiniboine early in the day, it was nice to walk past it again in full day light. With a plume of snow peeling off it’s lofty 11,871 foot summit it looked incredibly huge and intimidating.

Wonder Peak

Rod and I set off from the Jones Naiset Cabin around 16:00 on Thursday, September 4th under a mostly cloudy sky. There was very little wind and quite a bit of snow on the surrounding peaks but we were confident we could either scramble up Wonder Peak or The Towers and return before dark. The trail up to Wonder Pass went by quickly and was an easy 200 meters of height gain out of the way.

Nub Peak

I was pleasantly surprised when Yolande and Hanneke both said they would try hiking Nub Peak with us, I thought they might want a break after Wednesday’s grind into camp. It was later than I would have preferred for a morning start, but by 10:00 we were on the trail. The day was clearing up beautifully and I couldn’t resist some more pictures across Lake Magog on our way past it.

Miners Peak

Originally I was planning on bagging a peak like Burstall but with snow and rain threatening and fresh snow and ice on Burstall’s scramble route I had to change my objective for the day. After wandering around Spray Valley taking photos of the dramatic weather I ended up scrambling up Miner’s Peak and Ha Ling for exercise.

Thunder Mountain

Taking advantage of my temporary bachelor status, I took Thursday July 10 2008 off work and drove down to the Crowsnest Pass area to do an interesting and short scramble – Thunder Mountain. Why is this mountain interesting? Well, it’s the first mountain in the Canadian Rockies climbed by a non-aboriginal.

Gladstone, Mount & North Castle Peak

After getting out the previous two days on an attempt of Commonwealth and then a great day on Nihahi and Compression Ridges, it was time to visit the Castle / Crown area again. Keith and I drove down to the Gladstone trail head as described in Andrew Nugara’s scrambling book.

Wendell, Mount East Peak

On Saturday April 12, 2008 I joined Wietse and Keith on a tramp up the east ridge of Yamnuska, down into the CMC valley and then up the southeast ridge of the East Peak of Wendell.

Belmore Brown & Tiara Peak

On November 24th 2007, Wietse and I dragged ourselves out of bed way too early and headed out to the Powderface Trail and the parking area for Tiara Peak and Belmore Brown.

Romulus, Mount

I had a score to settle with Mount Romulus, so when TJ mentioned on the web board that he was going to be attempting it on Friday, November 2 2007, I decided that work could wait. Kevin Papke and Bill Kerr also decided that their work could wait, so we all hooked up on Friday morning and drove two vehicles with our bikes, to the Big Elbow Loop trail head.

Castle Mountain

On Saturday October 20 2007 Wietse joined me for a repeat slog up into the Castle Mountain environs. This time, thankfully, we actually made it.

Prairie Mountain

Not much to say here! This is a good hike to take the family on – including the family dog! It’s only 700 meters of height gain and you can probably go up any time of the year.

Morrowmount (Jura Peak)

On June 02 2007 Wietse and I headed to the mountains to attempt a peak from Kane’s scrambles book. Unfortunately for us, there was way too much snow in all the areas that we wished to scramble so we were forced to come up with alternate plans for the day.

Gunnery Mountain

After hiking Raspberry Ridge, Wietse and I decided we still had (just) enough energy to try for the summit of Gunnery Mountain and complete a 3 peak weekend.

Burke, Mount

On Friday March 09 2007 Wietse and I decided that we’d had enough of winter and set out for the Livingstone area to bag some peaks. We decided to try Mount Burke on the Friday and give Raspberry Ridge and Gunnery Peak a shot on Saturday.

Paget Peak

On Saturday, February 10 I finally bagged my first summit of the year 2007 and first summit since October 14 2006. That’s almost 4 months without a summit. No wonder it felt so good.

Bell, Mount

On Saturday, October 14 2006, I scrambled Mount Bell with Sonny, Calvin and Jeff. The weather was very acceptable for mid-October with some high cloud and temperatures anywhere from around 10 degrees at the base of the mountain to around 0 at the summit.

Yukness, Mount

On Saturday, September 30 2006, Sonny, Wietse and I hooked up to scramble Mount Yukness in Yoho National Park. The timing was impeccable.

Putnik, Mount

Jon and I woke up around 06:00 on Friday morning and set off for Mount Putnik to the northeast of our camp. I had done a lot of thinking on the route and had come to the conclusion that if we got lucky we should be able to bag the summit from the Three Isle Lake campground.