Jewel Bay Kayak Camp

Kayak camping is ace! You load all the stuff you can fit into your boat and just float along to the campsite. Zero effort, lots of luxury, and even better, your boat actually handles better in the waves than it would unladen. An all-round winner - and something I'll definitely be doing more of next year. Our first trip was along Barrier Lake in the Rockies, camping at Jewel Bay. Thanks to Simon, we borrowed a third boat and Sparky (friend from the UK) joined us. What a great little trip - I posted an account on the photo site.

Mt Temple

Mt. Temple is a truly awesome day out for anyone with the legs for 6,000 feet of ascent. It's one of the 54 11,000 foot summits in the Canadian Rockies. There's a quote from a famous US climber who says something like 'compared to the Canadian 11,000ers, the Colorado 14,000ers are a walk in the park'. Don't be fooled by the lowly altitude of our local hills; our trailheads are lower and the rock on the summits can be favourably compared to the very worst at Swanage (an infamously loose limestone sea cliff in the south of England). The Temple hike has the added spice provided by passing through the territory of at least three grizzly bears - and the best time to attempt it is, of course, in the middle of prime berry season. The views from the summit are fantastic, and the memory of the day will live on way past the pain of aching thighs.....more pics here.

Tiara Peak

Tiara Peak is a pleasant scramble to a less-visited summit between Highway 40 and the Powderface Trail in Kananaskis Country. I did this route in mid September 2009 with Sparky, an old friend from England. The route passes Belmore Browne peak, climbs a couple of easy scramble steps, then takes a spiral around the Tiara across some rubbly slabs, before emerging on a clean rocky top with great views. This mountain is on the Golden Eagle migratory flyway, which sees around 3,000 eagles pass through in the space of about three weeks, en route between Alaska and warmer places to the south. We saw three of these fantastic, solitary birds up close as they soared past at the height of the summit.

I've posted some pictures here.

A Double Brown Trouser Day on Mt Rae

This is just a brief write-up of a big day on Mt Rae, as Blogger's instabilities led to me losing the entire post previously. Mark Nelson and I headed up to Mt Rae (10,555 ft) for an afternoon scramble. It was a great outing, although I did get pretty worried when attempting to climb some gravel-strewn slabs near the summit ridge, with the Rae Glacier a very long way below. The summit was pleasingly sharp, and descending it was easy to pick a better, more solid line down to the approach trail.

The main incident of the day was an encounter with a large grizzly in the valley below. We had no option in our route, as the valley is steep-sided and backed by Mt Rae, so we stepped off the trail....and sighed with relief as the bear passed us by.

I posted a good number of pictures of this trip here. Picasaweb has yet to delete the album, so I suppose that's something!

Belmore Browne, Kananaskis Country

Belmore Browne (2,332 m / 7,649 ft) is a small summit about an hour from my home, with some great views. It's in a funny location, being close to Calgary, but off the surfaced road system, so it attracts few hikers compared to its neighbours to the north and south. It sits right on the edge of the Rockies, but gives some suprisingly distant views - we identified Mt Louis at about 50 km distance, from the summit of a nearby high point on the ridge.


Finding the start of the hike is a bit of a bugger. Even on descent, the trail simply peters out 100 m from the road. Advice given in Mike Potter's ridgewalks book suggests driving 20.9 km from the highway 66 end of the Powderface Trail, then just picking up the track from there. The truth is that even from the road, which overlooks the logging corridor, the way is not obvious. We parked in a small pull-out at about 20.1 km and descended directly, crossing an old logging corridor and an area of muskeg, followed the muskeg downhill for maybe 100 m, then nipped over a small rise to join the proper trail, which was invisible from just 5 m away. Better would have been to follow the road north for about 4-500m, then as it turns to the right, following the hillside, just plunge downhill to a creek and follow it briefly downstream. Look in the creek for several logs that have been placed on the far bank, angling down into the water. Cross here and you'll find a path that suddenly starts. You can follow this path all the way to the col below Belmore Browne, as it's flagged with marker tape at all critical points. On the way up we followed paths around a couple of dry waterfalls, but on descent it turned out that the rock in these is excellent and it would have been better to scramble them.

Lou wasn't feeling great on this hike, so we made a full day of something that a fast party could easily cover in 3-4 hours, but it made for a lovely day out, and even on a Long Weekend, the closest we came to other hikers was briefly spotting a group on Tiara Peak above us. I have posted pictures of the trip and the views here. Once you reach the col between BB and the main ridge, the rock gets better and there is a fun scramble to a minor high point to the left. On Belmore Browne peak itself, if you follow the ridge, there is superb rock just below the summit which gives a fun few metres of scrambling. From the summit, you can descend directly to the creek. The round trip is maybe 8 km with 650 m of ascent.

Paddling the Bow River: Policeman's Flats to Carseland

This is a pleasant paddle, which is little more than a float through ranchland. It's about 45 km long and took us around 7 hours, with two stops for food. The put-in is easily accessed via the southerly extension of Deerfoot Trail from Calgary, and there is a small slip. The exit at Carseland requires that you negotiate some interesting little channels, but it's well signed. I had a nasty little episode with a sweeper at this late stage - avoid any side channels unless you can see right through them! The final section of the paddle is actually one of the best parts. I was considering going for a swim, but I saw a fair-sized burbot writhing just under the surface, and that put me in mind of how it would be a great place for something nasty to lurk. The water around Carseland is sporadically deep, still and weedy....perfect for pike. Other wildlife spotted included llamas, pelicans, eagles and osprey.

Photo album here.