I came back from Colorado only 5 summits shy of my goal and did some awesome trips the following weekends. After my 499th summit, I started thinking: which one's next? The weather looked nice and I wanted my 500th to be unsurpassed, so much so that I started to feel stressed. I was hoping to go on an alpine climb, Mount Lefoy in particular but couldn't secure a partner. I was really disappointed, I had rarely thought of my trips as boring or ordinary but that's what I feared for this milestone. Eventually I embraced plan B, a long solo climb of Mount Charles Stewart. I told Raff about my intentions but I didn't expect him to come, I was surprised when he messaged me to make arrangements to meet in Canmore.
On my way to Canmore, Raff texted to let me know he was running late; we made plans to meet on the trail. I parked and started hiking at a casual pace enjoying the beautiful morning. When I reached the junction of the secondary drainage, I started to wonder if something had happened to Raff and Chantel; I was relieved to hear some yelling soon thereafter. Joined with my friends, conversation was lively as we proceeded up and around the big boulders of the drainage. We stopped often, taking time to photograph water features along the way. The ascent to the alpine meadows was straightforward; from there, we aimed for the col. The adjacent bowl to the right (north) looked familiar yet we continued straight ahead, something just didn't add up. At some point Raff said: I think we're going to Charles Stewart South. I didn't question it; after a quick look at the topo map, we went down and traversed in the proper bowl. Luckily we hadn't climbed too far, we joked about how silly it would have been to reach the wrong summit and read our names in the summit register... Anyway, once in the proper bowl, we easily climbed to the summit ridge and carried on to the false summit. Then, we dropped down on the west side to allow a simple traverse below the gnarly section of the summit ridge. The terrain is really loose there, thankfully it was short-lived and we gained the summit quickly afterwards. After 10.5 hours, it felt great to finally step on the summit, it was understood we would stay at the top to enjoy the view and the feat. There was much to celebrate, it was my 500th ascent and possibly the first doggy ascent! We took selfies, movies, ate and had a few shots of Fireball and Jägermeister; most importantly, Nala Bear had a nap. We almost stayed 2 hours on the summit before considering our return. It was tough peeling ourselves from the lofty viewpoint, we finally left at 7:30 PM. We made the most of the remaining daylight taking pictures of waterfalls along the creek and locating trail segments. We almost made it down the entire secondary creekbed without having to take out our headlamps. We hiked Cougar Creek in the dark without too much difficulty other than being dead tired. This outing might not have been what I hoped for my 500th but it was a stellar one nonetheless. Thanks to Raff and Chantel for accompanying me and making this trip an outstanding one after all!
Picture courtesy of Rafal Raffinator.
Picture courtesy of Rafal Raffinator.
Picture courtesy of Rafal Raffinator.
Picture courtesy of Rafal Raffinator.
