Forum Lake (Larch hunting) October 10, 2022 Waterton Lakes National Park Alberta

 Family hike today on thanksgiving to look for Larch trees.  Well it was a nice little stroll with the family, my kids have kind of grown tired of hikes, so this was probably our first entire family hike where we were all together in years.  Unfortunately we were a few days late on the larch trees.  The needles had fallen on many of the trees but there were still a few nice ones.  I'll have to time it better next year.

Forum Falls

Eighth wonder of the world, the backside of water

The wooden path

Close up of a larch tree

This is the Charlie Brown tree of Larch trees

Decided to hike around the lake

My Family

Some more Larch Pictures

One more

Track of Hike

Photo Sphere at back of lake

Custer Attempt #2 and Forum Peak Sept 23, 2022 Waterton Lakes National Park

 So my son just returned from his LDS mission in Toronto Ontario the 22nd of September and the first thing he wanted to do was go hiking, so we thought we'd try Custer again.  Last year we were snobbish and it was too Smokey and so we bailed.  This year it was nice but too wet and clouded over so we bailed.  Hopefully we'll get it next year?  We made it a little farther this year but we got to a point where we were really at risk of slipping and falling on the wet rock as we scrambled to we were smart and decided to head back.  I don't think the mountain top was viewable the entire day because of cloud cover.  Even if we had pushed ahead we would have had no good view from the top and that is what we want for this beast. So next time Custer, next time.  We did get one summit in though so the day wasn't a complete loss.  I think we may get sick of climbing Forum Peak.

This is what the clouds were like all day, never saw the true summit

Larches on the way up

Pretty sun rays coming through the clouds

There was the odd glimmer of hope that kept us optimistic

But we still got amazing views of Cameron Lake

Every now and then we got a good view over to the Kintla Lakes

On the wet rocks

Why we turned back, too wet on the steep rocks, a fall from here would be deadly

The border marker #272 it said it was surveyed and marked 1903-1907 I don't think may visit this one

Larch season...my favorite

Track of Hike

Summit Video on Forum

Photo Sphere where we stopped

Mount Carthew, Buchanan Ridge and Buchanan Peak September 10, 2022 Waterton Lakes National Park

 Often I get asked to take people on hikes and it is usually something I enjoy doing, so today was one of those days were a couple who are working on the peaks of Waterton needed to cross of Buchanan Ridge and Peak and I gladly went along for the ride.  It was an amazing non windy day in Waterton and those don't happen very often.  We got up to Carthew without too much difficulty and headed for Buchanan Ridge.  Last time my son and I went straight down the ridge but it was a little spicy so this time I noticed on Gaia that you point yourself to the Cameron Lake road and head more west and then come back on less steep exposed cliffs.  It was safer for sure but today there was snow on much of that area so it was still a little spicy.  We eventually accressed the Ridge and then continued down to the Peak and then headed to town.  Great day to climb 3 mountains!

Perfect reflection on Summit Lake

Little dusting of snow on Alderson

Custer, Kintla and Kinnerly looking awesome

Summit view looking to Alderson

Our spicy snow traverse

Looking up what I came down last time

Great view to the prairies

Heading for the last summit of day

Carthew Lakes

Alderson Lake

Track of Hike

Carthew Summit Video

Carthew Summit Photo Sphere

Buchanan Ridge Summit Video

Buchanan Ridge Photo Sphere

Buchanan Peak Summit Video

Buchanan Peak Photo Sphere

Castle Mountain August 17, 2022 Banff National Park Alberta

 Decided to rendez-vous with some friends from high school so we decided to head to Banff.  One of the first times I saw Castle Mountain, I thought wow what a mountain and I want to climb it one day, and today was that day.  It's a pretty straight forward hike up to Rockbound Lake and from there we gained the upper ridge and came around the lake to the high point looking over at Eisenhower tower.  On the way back we decided to take the lower shelf and it shaved off a bit of time and distance.  Beautiful scenery and beautiful day.  The rock on the upper shelf was pretty interesting and thanks to multiple cairns we found our way nicely.  It was a long day but worth every minute.  I later discovered that there is an ACC hut on Eisenhower tower, I'm no expert rock climber but that would be quite the undertaking to climb that thing and to stay at the hut.  Also of note this hike was relatively quiet compared to other areas in Banff, so if you want to avoid the crowds and get an amazing view, this is one to do.

For the first while we were in the trees and then got this view of Eisenhower

Perfectly calm Tower Lake with the towers behind it

Rockbound Lake

Heading up looking back at Rockbound Lake and the objective is just to the right of Eisenhower

From the upper shelf looking down on the lower shelf meadow

Another view of Rockbound and our objective on the right

Looking back at where we came, you can see the meadow of the lower shelf that is the way we returned

What a view of Eisenhower Tower

Summit view

Heading back, the afternoon/evening sun was spectacular on the lake

On the lower shelf meadow

Photo Sphere on Summit

Summit Video

Track of Hike

Mount Rowe and Festubert Mountain August 6, 2022 Waterton Lakes National Park

 Today was an adventure! So our over zealous plan today was to take the continental divide from Akamina pass all the way to West Castle or Castle Mountain Ski resort.  I had mapped it out and it was about 60km.  Last year we had done the triple crown in one day and that was 60km so we thought this was do-able.  Well having a trail the entire triple crown sure helped a lot, and this first section was not trailed and was a lot slower than we thought.  So first off I got up at 1:40 am to drive and drop off one vehicle at Castle Mountain Ski resort and then make it to Wall Lake trail parking lot to start hiking by like 5:50am.  Our group of 6 were all prepared for a long day and we headed up the Wall Lake trail to the pass and then started up the BC/Alberta cutline.  We got on top of Mount Rowe in under two hours got a great morning view from there and then continued along the continental divide ridge towards Festubert.  This section of the hike was a ridge I had never done before and this is what started to slow us down.  There was a part with some boulders and trees that really took the wind out of our sails.  It wasn't terrible it just wasn't a nice trailed section where we could maintain a good pace.  Anyways we got to Festubert just after 11:00am.  At this point I was starting to think we had bitten off more than we could chew, but perhaps this next section to Kishinena (which I had done pre fire) would be faster.  Well it was better till we hit the treed area that had been burned and the dead fall and burned trees slowed us again.  So we finally hit the south Kootenay pass and some of our party needed a bathroom break so we rested at the South Kootenay pass sign for a few minutes to wait for them.  Well after a few minutes we wondered where they were??? So there was three of them and so we started calling for them and looking around for them.  But they were nowhere to be found.  It was about 1:30pm and so I went up to a lookout point north of where we were to see if they had gone around us and to see if they were up there.  I got to this lookout point and could see Kishinena and there was no sign of them.  So I went back to South Kootenay pass to meet of with the other 3 of our party.  So we thought they maybe went down to the Lone Lake trail, so we headed down there and they were not there either.  Anyways at this point we sent two of our party to go to twin lakes encase they maybe got to Kishinena peak and came down Sage pass and then myself and another headed back to Red Rock Canyon.  This way we covered all the return methods back to Red Rock (we abandoned out goal of West Castle by this time).  Anyways we ran into a friend on the trail back to Red Rock and he hadn't seen our 3 missing hikers and luckily we ran into him because he would help us out and take us back to our vehicle since we had no way of getting back to our vehicle, because we hadn't left a vehicle at Red Rock.  Anyways I left to get the vehicle and then came back and by then the other two hikers had come around from Twin Lakes and hadn't seen the other three.  So at this point we decided to go to the Rangers and report the 3 missing.  We got to the Rangers by about 8:30pm and then sent up a helicopter to look for them.  Just after 9:00 the helicopter spotted the 3 missing hikers with about 4 km left coming back to Red Rock from the North Trail of Twin Lakes.  Anyways what happed is they stopped for their bathroom break and somehow walked by us at South Kootenay pass without us seeing each other and continued to Kishinena Peak thinking we were ahead of them. They waited on Kishinena for 3 hours before heading down to Sage Pass and back to Red Rock.  All ended well but we had a few mothers who were a little excited to say the least.  But what an Adventure that ended well, we just had to head back to get our vehicle at Castle Mountain, so I got home to bed almost 24 hours after I had got up for the day.  Long day but oh well it was a beautiful windless day in Waterton and that doesn't happen very often!

Leaving Home time

Border marker for BC/Alberta

Heading up the cutline looking towards Custer

Huge Cairn on the top of the Cutline

Upper Rowe Lakes

Sun coming up over Rowe

Rowe peaking looking towards Cameron Lake

Looking at our ridge walk

Looking down over Rowe Meadow

This is the section that slowed us down going to Festubert

Final push to Festubert with Glacier Peaks in the background

On Festubert looking down on Lone Lake and Mountain

Top of Festubert

Pretty ridge and valley looking back toward where Lone lake would be

Still found some bear grass along the way

This is moments before the 3 got lost heading to South Kootenay Pass

This is the picture I took at the Lookout to Kishinena, out three lost hikers where in the trees on the ridge at the moment I took this picture

Heading down from the lookout looking towards the Flathead valley where the South Kootenay pass would head to

My dirty legs after hiking through the burned dusty trails

Track of Hike

Photo Sphere on Rowe

Summit Video on Rowe

Photo Sphere on Festubert

Summit Video on Festubert