A dusk ascent.
Directly up via the Grassi Lakes trail, and on along the climbers trail to the pass. Past people wearing inappropriate shoes, who warned me it would be slippery coming back down. I had Yaktrax on though, and was invincible!
A couple of people on their way down over the first kilometre or so, not too long after sunset. And then I was on my own. The mountain got darker, but between the snow and the light of the half moon, I didn’t bother with my headlamp. The trail was well packed all the way, thankfully no treeline post-holing and snow-wading this time around.
I turned my headlamp on at the summit, and Alex messaged that he could see me. A quick glance down to the warm orange glow of Canmore, nestled between the mountains, then back down again, looking out west to the last glow of pink on the clouds, up to the warm orange glow behind me, to the half moon casting my shadow onto the snowy slope, and to the trail, always keeping an eye on that slippery snowy trail.
I made good time on the descent, and convinced my legs into a tired jog trot to get home for dinner. Around 3.5 hours door to door, with 3 hours of moving time. Not bad for winter conditions.