Cougar Mountain

A fantastic day out today. Photos here. I chose Cougar Mountain because it's on my Calgary Skyline tick list, close to home (35 minutes' drive) and offered a relatively short day, time-wise. It still requires 25 km of mountain biking, 12 km of hiking and 1,500 m or so of ascent, but these things are relative. I didn't choose it based on any recommendation of a quality outing, but as it turned out, it's a great hill to climb, and the scrambling is fun. We managed to ford both the Big and Little Elbow rivers (neither is on the 'official' route, but we mixed things up a bit later in the trip), which provided welcome coolness on another scorching summer's day. Our alternative descent via scree to the west of the false summit was a nice diversion, although the bushwhacking that followed was less entertaining, and cost us some time. We were the first people in the summit book for 2011; I'd estimate that the mountain may have seen only 200 ascents ever, which is a bit crazy given the great views and proximity to Calgary.