| Ref: Rocky Mountain Ramblers |
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Along the track
heading for Bath Creek. |
| Snowshoe trip: RT 10.0; 6.5 up. Another fine
outing, a
lot longer than we expected. Fab and I decided to leave to pooches at
home and
choose something close. The forecast called for sunny and relatively
mild weather again. This weekend we brought snowshoes though. Lost Lake
parking area was not plowed so we drove another kilometer
east to a pull. We traveled along the train track until we reached Bath
Creek and followed it all the way to the gravel flats.
Travelling was made easier by keeping to the frozen creek sides; we
still had to go through trees in several sections. At the gravel flats
we eventually came to a stream veering right towards the avalanche
paths, we followed it. We aimed to climb the furthest avalanche path;
hence,
we started a long traverse. Higher up on the slope, after breaking out
of the trees, we took off our snowshoes to hike on the windblown scree
ridges. Fab announced to me that he could no longer pursue the summit.
He walked to a high feature with sight of the summit and waited for me.
I
followed paths stripped of snow. The summit was still surprisingly
far; another late one? I really hustled, thinking about the doggies at
home and Fab down below. At 3:00 PM, after taking some
amazing pictures from this summit, I returned promptly to Fab. We
quickly got down to the bottom of our traverse without even putting the
snowshoes back on. The return was fine using our track. We hurried,
fatigued, to beat the darkness. When we arrived at the highway, it was
dark. Walking to the car on the skinny shoulder was scary with
all the transports buzzing by. We arrived at the car by 6:00
PM. Overall a great trip, we're glad to have been able to
use the creek for travel and that avalanche hazard was still minimal. |
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Falling in is not an
option. |
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Bluffs encouraged us
to traverse climber's left. |
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The traverse in
shallow snow. |
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Looking back towards
Pilot Mountain. |
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Bath Glacier. |
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Out of the trees we
took the snowshoes off. |
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Fabrice is just down
below, cheering me on the radio. |
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Nice windblown
stretch to the top. |
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The broad connecting
ridge from the top. |
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Mount Balfour. |
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Mount Hector. |
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North-west view
towards the Wapta Icefield. |
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The summit cairn is
quite flat! |
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Coming back down was
quick until we got to the creek. |
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to home page |
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