Trip Report - Montana

I read a satirical line recently that said "A great way to improve your experience is to lower your expectations."

Without intentionally doing this, we went to Montana for the Labour Day long weekend with fairly low expectations, but were surprised by how much more fun it was than expected. We would spend a day in the Waterton townsite hiking up Mt. Crandell, before then driving into Montana to stay two nights at a Tipi Village run by a Blackfoot artist. The experience of sleeping in a tipi was interesting... pro-tip: tie the door flap down at night, lest a gale force wind blow the door open, sending ashes from the fire pit inside swirling madly everywhere, while you confusedly wake up and search for your glasses and an instruction manual in the dark on how to close the door. (No instructions were to be found). Also, the Product Safety regulator in me questions the safety of lighting a fire inside what is essentially a giant tent.

We would also spend a day in Great Falls, alternating between drinking local brews and checking out random grocery stores. Food, Beer, Mountains, and travel. My kind of vacation.


The Lodgepole Tipi Village we stayed at in Browning, Montana.


From Bear's Hump, overlooking Waterton Lake, the townsite, and the historic Prince of Wales Hotel.








The Prince of Wales Hotel.


Inside the hotel.


Our home for two nights. We stayed in the yellow, blue and red one.










Running Eagle Falls, along the Going to the Sun Highway in Glacier National Park.

Trip Report - The Big Sister

In this week's edition of Summit Saturdays, we're going to play a game of Good idea/ Bad idea. Good idea: getting out to scramble up a mountain. Bad idea: taking your buddy's 12 year old son up a nearly 3000m peak (1200m elevation gain) for his first real scramble. Our bad.

Good idea: Enjoying the outdoors by chilling out in a copse of trees, halfway up the mountain. Bad idea: starting a campfire up there. Seriously, we saw the ashes of a fairly recent campfire some moron hikers had decided was necessary, despite it being a terribly dry season, with rampant wildfires raging in our national parks. I wish I could find these morons and punch them until they could no longer have kids...

Anyways, back to our main story. We ascended The Big Sister (the tallest peak of the Three Sisters) in the Canmore area yesterday, topping out at a high point after about 800m of elevation gain, shy of the summit because the kiddo was not feeling it (again, our bad). But for his first real experience scrambling a mountain, he did awesome. Lesson learned: start small next time.




The early part of the hike through the trees. Steep.


Above the treeline. Continuing steeps.








This little dude was a trooper.


Navigating a steep and lengthy downclimb... which we would later discover was completely unnecessary.


Scrambling on all fours.


The highpoint we would call it quits at.




Me!


All that matter is your state of mind.


And lastly, the ashes remaining from the fire I talked about. STUPID PEOPLE!

Trip Report - The Orphan

Summit Sundays, with a side of smoke from the BC wildfires. We took a jaunt up a seldom visited minor peak called The Orphan, and aside from the smoke obscuring the views and some terrible wind gusts up top, we had a pretty decent outing with the entire mountain to ourselves. Beginning to finish, we encountered nobody else... likely because the actual hike in isn't terribly interesting. A mindless trudge up a big wide open creek bed, then a longer than it appears scree slope leading to the summit. But the summit view of the neighbouring peaks is pretty striking (see the panoramas below).




This hike may have been boring, but this view (Anita sitting on the false summit in the middle)... stunning. Click to view a larger version.


And the view looking the other way.


The beginning part of the hike on a large creek bed, with not much to see.


Finally getting to some views.
















Summit beer!


A view of the Three Sisters, but from a much less common vantage point.

Trip Report - Storm Mountain (Highwood Area)

Before we get to the photos of our scramble up Storm Mountain, I wanted to relay a story from our first attempt up the peak. I had to pee, so quickly sprinted off into the bushes to relieve myself. And all I could think was, why does it smell like I'm swimming in a sea of delicious Gin and Tonics? Turns out, the trail was littered with juniper bushes, and the aromatic berries temptingly tantalized my nostrils. Mmmm... Gin.

Anyways, we made two attempts at summiting this weekend, and failed both times. 1) Saturday: we didn't make it as one of our party didn't feel so hot, and we were forced to turn back shortly into the hike. 2) Sunday: we decided to turn back just below the false summit as we could see the rain coming, making the thought of descent down the steep scree and slabs a nightmare. Turns out it was a wise decision as we reached the end of the sketchy part of the descent right as the heavy rain started. #livetofightanotherday




Juniper Berries!


Gin and Tonics for all!






Steeps!
















Fossils