Years ago when I was a boy scout I vaguely remember doing a hike where we had a good look back at Turtle Mountain. Well today I confirmed that the hike we did was an attempt at Livingstone South Peak, although as a less than excited group of boys 30ish years ago we didn't make it to the summit but instead settled for the ridge view about half way up what we did today. Anyways fast forward to present day and we had what looked like a great Saturday off work to scramble and I figured this front range peak would be clear enough of snow and I was right. We started out the day on the cool side, but quickly layered down to just t-shirts. It was a gorgeous non windy day in the Crowsnest Pass. I forgot sunscreen and today while writing this blog I'm feeling the pain of that forgetfulness. There were a few snow covered sections but they weren't too hard to navigate. I had looked at a couple others peoples trip reports and gleaned some advice off them. There is one section where there is a big vs small notch in the rocks and we took the small notch. We saw around 20 other people on the trail today which is quite different as we are usually alone, so this might just be a popular trail and interestingly most other hikers had their dogs with them. There had to be about 10 dogs on the trail today...never seen that before. Anyways a great hike on a great day. We commented how this would be a great sunrise summit and I must admit I'd be game for that another time. This is a good shoulder season summit, probably do able all year round.
Turtle Mountain through some old dead trees |
I think as a scout this is about as far as we got |
First views of Crowsnest Mountain, objective of the day to the far right |
Another shot over at Crowsnest |
This is the "notch" ridge, you can see the big notch on the right, we went over the small on which is almost at the high point on the ridge in the middle |
On the other side of the notch there was a fair bit of drifted snow but it wasn't bad to go across |
A little section with a pretty narrow ridge walk but since the wind was absent no problems today |
The scree slog up to the summit |
At the top looking over to Cauldron and Center Peaks |
Crowsnest and the Sisters to the west |
Looking down at Turtle |
Summit Photo |
The snow was nice and soft (also wet) on the way down |
Part of our group up ahead |
Almost back at the vehicle |
Track of Hike
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