On a day so windy that we thought we’d be blown off the mountain (and I was wondering about the boots from The Blood-and-Thunder Adventure on Hurricane Peak), we decided to hike up Heart Mountain. The trees were whipping around like mad, and as a strong gust of wind came along we had to crouch to avoid being blown over (or off the mountain, you can never be too careful). It was delightfully sunny though, and the track was mostly bare – although some snow patches remained. Lots of trail braiding too, so it was easy enough to choose a trail that didn’t go through the snow in most cases.
Walking back down from the summit – lovely and sunny, but too windy to hang out (or to want to keep doing the full loop hike around the rest of the ridge-line)
Summit views along the Bow Valley towards Canmore (Grotto Mountain on the right, Mt Lawrence Grassi and Mt Rundle off in the distance on the left)
Out towards the plains of Calgary and the scenic lime factory
Scree, scree, and more scree. And a cement factory. And Exshaw.
Heart Mountain – if you use your imagination you can see how it got its name – the limestone does form a sort of heart shape. I’ve heard of a few misguided guys trying to drag their partners up here as a romantic spot for a proposal, only to have their partners kick up a stink at the scrambling sections. Sure, the name has potential, but you could pick a better hike for a proposal.
For reference, this is the one tricky part at about half-way that is mentioned in write-ups of the hike. It’s just a couple of scrambley moves to gain a higher bench – not exposed, and not really too bad going either down or up (be careful to look out for the orange diamond marking the spot though, otherwise it’s easy to keep walking straight).
And some people might not like this either (although you can go around to the right instead of going up this cleft, it’s more exposed, but less steep I think).
Overall the trail is easy to find and follow, just make sure you don’t end up following one of the weaker trails that disappear off from it.
