I Took The Path Less Traveled By: July 2019

July 29, 2019

ACC Summer Camp The Bugaboos July 22-27, 2019

This was my first Alpine Club of Canada Camps and from what I experienced it will not be my last. I booked this some months ago and was pretty excited to go experience something different. I bought a lot of new gear which was way too shiny compared to everyone else's but it didn't matter. So we headed up to the Bugaboos early Monday morning the 22 of July and hiked from the parking lot to the Conrad Kain hut. The 5 km hike wasn't bad except for the almost 60 pound pack I was carrying made it pretty tough. We had beautiful views all the way up which motivated me. That afternoon we explored around a little and that included a quick trip by some of us up to the Applebees campground. I could not believe the tents up there. I think they said that there were about 60 tents up there. So on Tuesday a large group of us headed up to Hounds Tooth and crossed the Bugaboo Glacier to get there. It was my first real time travelling on a glacier. The snow was soft enough that we didn't need our crampons. The view on that summit was amazing. Wednesday was a rain day and so we chilled most of the day in the cabin. However, in the morning I did do a crevasse rescue/anchor building exercise to practice crevasse rescue. Thursday we attempted Brenta Spire and since we ran into a snag we headed over to Eastpost Spire instead. Friday was the epic day, here I got to do my first multi-pitch rock climb and we climbed Lion's Way on Cresent towers. Overall this was an amazing trip and the views at the Bugaboos is just amazing, definitely a place I'd like to return to again. Then Saturday we came home. What a week! I took over 500 pictures and they never do justice but here are a few!

There used to be lots of porcupines in the area that would eat at the underside of your vehicles so you protect them with chicken wire...just encase.

The first views of the area were amazing. That peak in the middle is Hounds Tooth which we would climb the next day

The hut sign, learned a lot about Conrad Kain this week...what a boss!

The hut with Eastpost spire behind it

View over to the glacier from Applebees campground

Some of the tents at Applebees

Some info about Conrad Kain

Heading up the Bugaboo Glacier towards Hounds Tooth

Heading up Hounds tooth with Pigeon Spire in the middle and Howser Towers to the left

On top of Hounds Tooth with Snowpatch Spire in the middle

Coming down Hounds Tooth with Snowpatch in the background

Sunrise heading over to Brenta Spire attempt

Summit Selfie on top of Eastpost Spire

View of Snowpatch on left and Bugaboo Spire on right from Eastpost

Our entire group

Just getting ready to climb Lion's Way looking across to Snowpatch spire on left

My guide for Lion's Way Tim...what a boss! Bugaboo spire on left

Shot going up Lion's Way with Snowpatch spire behind

One of the several pitches up Lion's Way

On top of Lion's Way...epic!

View from the top of Lion's Way

Reflection in a glacier lake of Snowpatch Spire

Track In

Track to Applebee

Track of Hounds Tooth

Track of Brenta/Eastpost

Track of Lion's Way

Track out

Photo Sphere at Cabin

Photo Sphere at Applebee

Video on Hounds Tooth

Photo Sphere on Hounds Tooth

Video on Eastpost

Photo Sphere on Eastpost

Video on top of Lion's Way Climb

Photo Sphere on top of Lion's Way Climb

July 20, 2019

Egypt Lake Banff National Park July 16-18, 2019

So after I returned from my winter trip to Egypt Lake, I decided to go again so I booked the Egypt Lake Hut for the summer. Well the time came to go and so we made this a family excursion. The trip had forecast for a little rain, and the little rain turned into a lot of rain and a little snow? Our hike in wasn't too wet, we got up to Healy Pass and had a great view down onto the Egypt Lake area, but didn't have a great view south because of cloud. The night we arrived we though we could make a run up the Sphinx without any problem and maybe get a summit sunset. Well the trail was a little harder than we though and we ran out of time and it was rainy and wet. So we returned and went to bed. The next day we tried again for the Sphinx and maybe thought we could get in the Sphinx and Pharaoh in. Well the rain made it so that we only did the Sphinx. The Summit view on the Sphinx was great except for the rain and being overcast. I wish it could have cleared off but it didn't. So the next morning we got up to fresh snow on the Healy Pass above us and so we cleaned up and headed out. The weather was ok till the pass then it was all down hill....literally. We got rained on the entire way out. Lets just say that is probably the wettest I have ever been hiking it even snowed a little. Well we got back to our vehicles and got warm and dry. Maybe I'll have to go back another time and bag Pharaoh Peak another time.

Our crew at the beginning

Bear track on the way up

Heading up Healy Pass looking back

Unnamed lake just below the Monarch in the clouds

Egypt Lake in the middle with Pharaoh on left and Sphinx on left

Got a visit twice by a helicopter for some hut maintenance

The Sphinx reflecting on Egypt Lake

Scarab Lake with Scarab Peak behind

New motto in life?

Sleeping quarters (hut sleeps 12)

More quarters

Cooking area, where a lot of cards were played

Our group at Scarab Lake

Heading up the Sphinx looking down on Mummy lake

Mummy Lake on left and Scarab Lake on right

On the Sphinx looking down on Egypt Lake

The larches were amazing up here...maybe a fall hike (Pharaoh Peak in the clouds)

2nd Helicopter visit flying in front of Pharaoh Peak

The Hut with Sun on it!

Getting ready to leave, dry at this point

Clear on top of Healy Pass on the way out

This is what we headed into???

Track on way in

Track of the Sphinx

Track on the way out

Photo Sphere at Egypt Lake

Sphinx Summit Video

Photo Sphere looking down from Sphinx

July 14, 2019

Windsor Mountain and Castle Peak July 10, 2019 Castle Wildland

So today was an awesome one. I'd been looking at these two peaks for years and finally got the opportunity to Summit them both. This was a triathlon type day; we biked, scrambled and rock climbed. The bike approach was around 9 km and took us about an hour. We then found the very nice trail and followed it pretty much all the way up till the scree of Windsor. We had thought about doing Castle first but the trail lead us to Windsor first. The views on Windsor were spectacular and you could see all the way down into Glacier/Waterton. We then descended into the ridge traverse over to Castle and what a ridge walk that was. The cliff below that ridge was amazing. As we approached Castle the weather turned and we got a little rain and the wind was crazy. So we tucked in behind a big rock at the base of Castle for about a half an hour and the storm blew over. We then got ready and geared up for the technical ascent of Castle Peak. This was my first real technical rock climb. This was a single pitch 5.6 rock climb. I GoPro'd my portion of the climb to try to give some perspective on the climb and the video turned out pretty good except a large portion of it is my GoPro looking right at rocks. It was a great feeling to stand on top of that awesome summit block. The wind was crazy at top and we would have stayed longer but we needed to get home before dark. The summit register said that the first known ascent of this was in 2004 and there was probably only about 8 parties of climbers that had ever ascended the true summit of this mountain. So there has probably only been less that 30 people to every reach this summit. The rappel down the summit was pretty great too, not as nerve racking as the climb! We then headed down to our bikes and started our bike ride out of 9 km. Except after about 3 km my CCM Falcon which has a few more years on it that most bikes had a flat tire. It was my rear tire so everyone else headed out and I had to walk my bike most of the way out. I tried riding it a few times but the tire and tube kept making it harder. Eventually my son came back and took my pack with about 2 km left. At that point I had cut off the rubber tire portion and the inner tube and was just on the medal portion and since I lost the weight of my pack I could bike most of the rest. All in all it was an awesome day, except for the flat tire. But I would do it all again for such an epic day.