My main question with West Wind Pass is this: did they only tack the “West” part on the front of the name because they thought it would cause too much ribald snickering otherwise?
Being a lovely warm sunny weekend, half of Calgary was in Canmore, as a result we decided to go slightly further afield for the afternoon – to West Wind Pass, a short and relatively gentle hike out in K-Country.
Yes, I’m doing a lot of hiking these days. Mountain biking is out at the moment, and I’ve been doing some climbing in my fancy full body harness, just not outdoors yet (because my hands and I have an agreement about not going near cold rock… this weekend is looking promising though). And the snow has all gone (well, not really, there’s still plenty around if you’re super keen … that does not describe me at the moment). So in the meantime, I hike.
Most of the time we were in the trees. I do not have any photos of this, as it was one of those “trees trees and more trees” kind of times, and a very steep trail. I’ve hiked Grotto before, but had forgotten just how much steeper it is than the other trails on the main Canmore mountains. The main Canmore mountains being Ha Ling, EEOR (East End Of Rundle), Lady Mac and Grotto, according to this chart I just invented.
Surprisingly enough, getting more pregnant isn’t helping my hiking speed – perhaps I need an oxygen tank and some sherpas. It was also a really warm day. Well, it was 15oC or so, maybe a little more, but it felt really warm being baked by the alpine sun on the side of a steep mountain.
But after hours of never-ending hiking up the steep trail through the trees, we eventually hit the tree-line. It was amazing and oh-so-exciting. Except then the people who’d never been up Grotto before were asking us “Is that the top just there?”. And we had to reply “No, that’s not the top, see all the way over there along the ridge? That is the top”. And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Once you leave the tree line it’s not far at all to the false summit though, and progress feels a lot more substantial compared to the never-ending trees below. Also, it was a gorgeous day, which didn’t hurt.
Reaching the false summit, we decided not to head all the way along the ridge-line to the summit proper. Half of us had been there before, one quarter of us really wasn’t fussed, and the remaining quarter wasn’t sufficiently enthused to go and do it on his own.
All that remained then was the eternal infernal trek back down the mountain, which brought a few animal sightings (chipmunk? squirrel? wacky grouse birds?) and hardly any bear maulings.
After work, and my first snow-free ascent for the year. I had the mountain to myself (there was barely even a squirrel to be seen), and it was lovely blue sky weather too.
It was a miserable weekend, but come Sunday afternoon the cabin fever outweighed the desire to avoid the weather, so we headed up to the teahouse on Lady Mac.
Although it’s right next to Ha Ling Peak anyway…. the East End of Rundle (EEOR). It’s a slightly longer hike than Ha Ling, and I always put off doing it as I didn’t want to do it solo, as I’d heard plenty of reports of people losing the trail, or having issues on the final scramble to the summit.
The trail really isn’t that bad though! It’s pretty obvious most of the way, although when you get above the treeline a few options open up in the scree. It starts up above the Goat Creek parking lot, so best option is to park at the end of the artificial lake at Whiteman’s Gap. A bit of back and forth in the trees and then you hit a rocky spur and start heading directly towards the summit. You mostly stay on top of the spur, and near the right where the cliffs lurk below, and the trail isn’t too hard to follow as long as you’re paying attention. Eventually the trees thin out and you set off through a mix of scree and some meadow terrain (apparently packed with bears and wildflowers during summer). Final summit options are to head to the right (apparently sketchier), or across to the left, then back right to the summit. The main problem on that final section is people trying to kick rocks on you from above.
We did the return trip in 4.45hrs – with a fairly slow pace and lots of breaks, but no getting lost. The downhill takes about half the time of the uphill journey though.
Weather was variable too – warm when the wind dropped and the sun was out, cool when the sun disappeared and the wind picked up. It was even graupelling on us for a good chunk of the descent, but the sun kept peeking out, so we couldn’t really take it seriously.
