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Tag : SC5

Lougheed, Little

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.

Tent Ridge

I’ve wanted to do a traverse around the Tent Ridge Loop for years already. When the family was heading out to the mountains to do a hike I decided this would be a perfect chance to do it. All I can say is follow Gillean Daffern’s guide TO THE LETTER. This includes walking BACK along the road from the parking area on the Mount Shark road. If you’re only going up Tent Ridge, take the obvious trail up the logging road a wee bit further UP the road and follow directions, but if you’re doing the loop ignore this obvious trail and walk BACK along the road, following her directions.

Windtower (West Wind Pass)

After almost 2 months without a summit and a long family vacation which saw me drive over 5000 kilometers in 2.5 weeks, I was more than ready to get out to the solitude of the Rocky Mountains again! Since I had just driven 10 hours the day before, coming back from visiting family in the Vancouver area, I decided that I would do something fairly low key on Thursday, July 19. I have wanted to hike Windtower for a long time already and this seemed like the perfect day to do just that, so I did.

Charles Stuart South, Mount (Buffalo Point)

I wasn’t sure how it would feel to bash my way up a scree slope after just ascending two of the nicest peaks in Alberta a few weeks previous (North Twin and Twins Tower) but surprisingly I really enjoyed my solo ascent of Buffalo Point. Considering this was my 300th peak, it was strangely appropriate that it’s ‘unofficial’ and off the beaten path and that I did it solo, as so many of my favorite outings over the past 10 or 11 years have been solo ascents of piles of scree and for some strange reason I still love doing it! I guess I must genuinely love the mountains if I can enjoy a scree bash almost as much as a fine ski ascent.

Quartzite Peak

After an excellent day out on Ramp Peak a few weeks previous, I was thinking it would be a good idea to take advantage of the excellent snow pack of spring 2012 and go after Ramp’s neighbor to the north, Quartzite Peak before too much spring warmth melted all that delicious snow pack away! On this particular day I was joined by Raf and Ian Hunt. It was good to be going on a trip with the crazy Pol again and Ian and I haven’t done a trip together in around 4 years so that was cool too. Being so late in the spring, our only real concern for the day was the snow pack stability. We knew that things would be locked up pretty snug all morning due to a nice cool night time temperature but we also knew that there was a really good chance of isothermal snow in the afternoon once the sun started heating things up.

Bryant, Mount

I’ve wanted to scramble Mount Bryant for a while already. We’d gone past the mountain back when we scrambled Mount Howard and I met So Nakagawa for the first time afterwards – he’d just come back from Bryant. I wasn’t expecting anything spectacular but I was very pleasantly surprised by this outing. First of all, it felt quite remote. I stopped several times in the creek bed on approach and listened to the sound of silence – a very pleasant sound. The creek approach is also surprisingly fun and easy, thanks to a great trail that runs along the sides.

Pocaterra Ridge

On a late September day in 2011, Hanneke and I spent a few hours hiking the gorgeous Pocaterra Cirque and Ridge near the Highwood Pass in Kananaskis Country. This area is known for its colorful larch displays and it didn’t disappoint! We enjoyed warm weather and calm winds.

Boundary Peak

Since school was just around the corner (where does time go?!) and Hanneke, my wife, was on call for the weekend, we decided that the weekend of August 19-21, 2011 would be a good weekend for a father / kids adventure. After some debate, the kids and I decided that Yoho would be a cool place to camp and the Burgess Shale guided tour would be a pretty awesome thing to try! Of course, since I’m a peakbagger and we had another two days to do other things besides the shale tour, I found us a nice peak to bag on Saturday, August 20.

Yoho Peak (Waterfall Valley)

Mount Des Poilus has been on my radar for quite some time. Originally it was always a ski objective but lately I’d also been looking at it as a possible summer peak. After reading Andrew Nugara’s one day ascent of Yoho Peak and a separate (impressive!!) one day climb of Mount Des Poilus I had the brilliant idea to combine the two with a bivy to eliminate two long day trips and a repeat of the somewhat tedious approach. When Raf indicated that he was also interested in Des Poilus as a summer trip, I told him of my plan to spend 1.5 days near the Des Poilus glacier and combining Yoho and Des Poilus into one trip. He loved the idea. On August 13 & 14 2011 we were joined by Alan Fortune for this little adventure.

Mosquito Mountain

On Saturday, June 18 2011 Wietse, Kevin (Papke) and I stole a day on Mosquito Mountain along the Icefields Parkway in Banff National Park. The weather forecast was dreary but we all really wanted to get out and stand on a summit. I’d been planning a fall trip up Mosquito for a few years already, but since So posted a TR from early June on this summit I thought “why not do it now” and so we made plans.

Bow Peak

Summit Elevation (m): 2868Trip Date: April 09 2011Elevation Gain (m): 1000Round Trip Time (hr): 7Total Trip Distance (km): 15Quick ‘n Dirty Rating: Class 2/3 – you fall, you break your leg. Unless you’re caught in an avalanche – then you could die.Difficulty Notes: Winter ascent includes serious avalanche risks. Learn how to manage these risks and perform avalanche burial rescues before attempting this trip. Technical Rating: OT4 – Skiing; YDS (3rd)GPS Track: GaiaMap: Google Maps On Saturday, April 09 2011 So and I did the Bow Peak […]

Schaffer, Mount (McArthur Lake)

After scrambling Mount Kent the day before I was up at 04:30 on Thursday, September 30 2010 to spend a few solitary days in the Lake O’Hara region of Yoho National Park. Of course, I realized that I would not be alone in this beautiful area, but I needed a few days of peace and meditation before starting a new contract and getting back to the real world again. Amazingly I managed to book a spot at the Elizabeth Parker ACC hut with only a week’s notice – normally you have to play a lottery the previous year just for the right to book a spot!

Wedge Mountain (Crowsnest)

On Saturday, September 11 2010 I climbed to my 260th summit with my 9 year old son, Niko. The fact that we got to do this short scramble together as part of a special father-son weekend makes this a peak that I’ll remember for a long time. What else can I say? It’s short, steep and loose. You get to enjoy the sounds of gunshots and ATV’s and you get to enjoy the sight of recent logging too! On a more serious note, you do get great views of the Crowsnest Pass area including full-on shots of Crowsnest Mountain.

Pyramid Mountain

On the weekend of June 26, 27 I was joined by So Nakagawa on a quest to finish up my remaining “Kane” scrambles in Jasper National Park. The plan was to scramble both Pyramid and Cinquefoil on Saturday and finish up with Utopia on Sunday. Secretly I was thinking that this was a slightly aggressive plan and it would take a small miracle to pull it off but what’s life without a few aggressive, unrealistic goals?

Cinquefoil Mountain

After scrambling Pyramid Mountain in 6 hours car-to-car, So and I decided that we’d better not waste the rest of a perfectly fine day on lounging around in our campsite so we went up Cinquefoil Mountain instead! Cinquefoil is rated “easy” and the short time that Kane lists is around 4 hours. This is fine except it sets the expectation for the mountain pretty low. Most people seem surprised both by the difficulty and length of this trip.

Sheep Mountain (via Coffin) & Horseshoe Ridge

On Saturday, May 15 I was joined by Wietse and Sonny on a bit of an exploratory trip in the Livingstone range in Kananaskis Country. We drove up an old logging road (start @N 50 5.522, W 114 25.942) with the intent of parking somewhere between Sheep Mountain and Horseshoe Ridge and bagging both summits from the parking area at the pass.

Hillcrest Mountain

On Saturday April 10 2010 Wietse and Naomi joined me on a relaxing outing to the summit of Hillcrest Mountain in the Crowsnest Pass. We got the idea for this mountain from Bob Spirko and Rick Collier. Originally we had planned on a ski trip up Crowfoot Mountain but with avalanche warnings in the red zone we thought it best to avoid as much snow as possible.

Howard, Mount

On Remembrance Day, November 11, 2009 I joined Bill Kerr, Wietse Bylsma and Kelly Smith for a hike up Mount Howard in Kananaskis Country in the front ranges of the Alberta Rockies.

Fairview & Saddle Mountain

Summit Elevation (m): 2744 Elevation Gain (m): 1000 Trip Time (hr): 5.5 Total Trip Distance (km): 10 Quick ‘n Dirty Rating: Class 2 – you fall, you sprain something Difficulty Notes: Easy hiking and scrambling on trail. Technical Rating: TL4; YDS (Hiking)GPS Track: Gaia Map: Google Maps On Thursday, August 27 2009 I took my whole family up Mount Fairview to check out what it looks like in the summer after previous doing it with my brother in April of 2004. Even the dog made […]

Observation Peak

Finding myself with a free weekend in the summer is a very rare occurrence, so when it happened on the weekend of August 7, 8 and 9 I arranged a 3 peak extravaganza! The first summit would be a solo effort so I chose something without a lot of difficulties and a short approach, Observation Peak.

Eiffel Peak

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.

Anderson | Lost | Kootenai Brown | Bauerman Traverse

Summit Elevation (m): 2652Elevation Gain (m): 1600Trip Time (hr): 8 Total Trip Distance (km): 22 Quick ‘n Dirty Rating: Class 2 – you fall, you might sprain something Difficulty Notes: Easy hiking and scrambling on grass / shale with some easy route finding.Technical Rating: OT3; YDS (Hiking)GPS Track: Gaia Map: Google Maps After big days on Akamina Ridge / Forum Peak and then Newman, Spionkop and Avion we were ready for a third big day on Sunday, June 21 2009. Since Wietse and […]

Newman Peak | Spionkop Ridge | Avion Ridge Traverse

A long day out but a very worthwhile one and one of the nicest days I’ve spent in Waterton.

Windy Peak (Livingstone Traverse)

After descending Hornecker we were staring at the steep south ascent slopes of Windy Peak. We grunted up the slope and were soon battling very strong wind (what did we expect right?!) to the 5th summit of the day. Windy Peak is just a hike, but we had great views of some cloud formations coming over the Rockies to the west and a little bit of wind wasn’t ruining our day any!

Hornecker, Mount (Livingstone Traverse)

Due to route choices, JW, Keith and I actually did about 75-100 extra meters of height gain on this small peak. Ironically we were trying to avoid bushwhacking and JW and I ended up in some very thick and thorny trees! We dipped all the way down to the col between Windy Peak and Hornecker, instead of cutting climber’s left much earlier.