Volcano Ridge Loop

With winter still not leaving the high mountains, we took a day off work to go hiking in the edge of the Front Ranges. At 2110 m high, Volcano Ridge is a minnow beside the whales that form the local skyline: Bluerock Mtn, Mt. Rose, Threepoint and Cougar Mountains. It makes for a fairly leisurely 19 km day with about 600 m of ascent, if completed as a loop from the southern end of the Gorge Trail.

The hike follows signed trails all the way, although as usual the sign boards have been defaced by young (?) neanderthals learning how to use rocks as primitive tools, so take a map. The trail winds pleasantly through grassy meadows for a while, then starts to climb, before a second meadow stretch and a final 250 m steep section across an open hillside, to the summit. Here, great views of peaks from Moose Mountain round to Bluerock Mountain await. Calgary is visible in the distance on the prairie. The descent is steep - too steep, really, and will have your knees aching.

The highlight of this trip was the various wildlife signs and encounters along the way. Seeing what we thought to be a wolf track was quite exciting, but finding fresh bear tracks 23 cm in length was a little more scary; the jury is out on the type of bear, but it was a big one. We also saw a moose cow and her calf on the drive in. More dramatic but ultimately funny was when we heard branches snapping, and Lou whispered 'I just saw something cross the trail behind us - it had a long black tail'. Bears don't have tails, and cougars don't have black ones, so we went to look.....only to find a big, clumsy grouse clinging to a nearby tree, lookng shifty, and a second one running off into the forest. Quite a relief! I took several more pictures from the hike, which are on my Picasa site.