grotto mountain – evilmoose

Not quite to the top of Grotto Mountain

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.

Out of the trees – finally!

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.

Up the scree, weaving around snow patches, or sometimes straight through them – Canmore below with Mount Rundle behind

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.

Kids on the false summit

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.

Not up to no good – standing on the false summit of Grotto Mountain (the west end of the ridge) with Mt Lady Mac in the background

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.

I started off on this hike with the vague idea that it would only take a couple of hours. I mean, the mountain’s just there! In my backyard! Surely it shouldn’t take too long to walk to the top. As I stumbled out the front door, I noticed snow on all of the surrounding mountains – ooohhh, that’s right, it was raining last night, I guess it must have been colder than I realised – curse this ‘Summer’ of the Canadian Rockies. And then I could have turned around and picked up my gaiters, but it seemed warm, surely it wouldn’t be too bad. Perhaps the snow would melt before we got there.

Meandering across from home and through the Benchland trails, we eventually hit the northwest spur of Grotto Mountain and started the hike up. The trail was obvious, and kept zig-zagging up the spur until we reached this white lurking presence which hung in the trees, and covered the ground making it all slippery and wet. With a bit more backsliding we wandered on up to the edge of the scree slope and on towards the false summit. Ahhh, snow covered scree, my favourite thing. Wind-blown snow covered scree is even better.

Canmore and its many mountains

Hitting the ridge the wind picked up, which didn’t make our snow-soaked shoes and pants feel any warmer. As we crossed the kilometre of ridgeline between the false summit and actual summit, the wind veered between ‘chilly breeze’ and ‘oxygen-stealing force of doom’. Following the ridge along, I tried to pick the line of least snow (and avoid being blown off). Summit – quickly take photos then retreat. Must escape wind. Cold wind. Views! But wind too cold. Descend, shelter from wind, devour sugar, drink water.

Brrrr

As we hit the treeline my brain started to function again. The snowline had crept a long way up the mountain since we’d started out this morning, and as we dropped further into the valley the wind died away and the temperature slowly crept up, until eventually I was warm.

It was about then that we came across these odd birds… the female Dusky Grouse (no, I didn’t know what it was at the time, I had to ask the internet afterwards) was herding about her flock of three chicks, and looking at us suspiciously, while her male friend sat in a tree nearby, before jumping out to parade past us.

Female Dusky Grouse

Male Dusky Grouse

On arrival home I discovered that the summit is at 2706 metres (8878ft) – so an altitude gain of 1300 metres or so. That could be why it took a while.