Mount Albert Loop

December 27, 2017. A solo, moderately challenging snowshoe trip to a peak in Beauvais Lake Provincial Park. The remnants of Southern Alberta’s first snowfall of the winter season vanished in Chinook winds in early December this year. At the beginning of last week, temperatures were well above freezing and I was afraid I’d have a […]

Piney Point Loop

November 17, 2017. A solo, moderately challenging snowshoe trip in Beauvais Lake Provincial Park, Alberta. It’s been a long time since I got to do any hiking. The latter part of the summer saw our nearby mountains damaged by an significant forest fire. Waterton Lakes National Park instituted backcountry bans as the fire rolled in, […]

Hampstead Heath Circuit

August 12, 2017. A stroll through an ancient London Park, tagging the “summit” of the County of London. It’s vacation time, and I have the great good fortune to be spending 2 weeks in the UK. Getting ready for this trip, I hadn’t really thought about exactly what I wanted to do. I’ve been to […]

Bertha Peak Attempt

July 30, 2017. A solo attempt at an easy-to-moderate scramble in Waterton Lakes National Park. I’ve been wanting to scramble this peak for a while. Bertha Lake is a perennial favourite, and ever since I found out there was a scrambling route up to Berta Peak I’ve been wanting to try it. I wanted to […]

Mount Lineham and Rowe Lakes

July 21, 2017. A solo trip, with a challenging hike/easy scramble to the 2nd highest mountain peak in Waterton Lakes National Park, and a visit to a family of mountain lakes on the return trip. I have a goal of someday doing the Hawkins Horseshoe in Waterton – a route that involves a scramble up […]

Goat Lake

July 17, 2017. A moderately challenging hike to a lake in a hanging valley in Waterton Lakes National Park. I’d been promising my 9-year-old daughter that we could do a hike together, just the two of us. Last year she made it up and around Bertha Lake with no problems, so I figured she’d be […]

Chester Lake & Three Lakes Valley

July 10, 2017. A solo hike to high mountain lakes in Kananaskis country. My wife, who is both intelligent and stunningly beautiful, told me that I could leave the family behind today and hike on my own. This was a departure from our original plan for the 3 days we’d have in Kananaskis, which was […]

Hiking with kids

July 9, 2017. Today was day 2 of a short family hiking vacation. We did this last year with our kids, doing one short hike a day. Last year we did Rawson Lake, Ptarmigan Cirque, Grassi Lakes and Elbow Lake. This year, we only have 3 days, but the intent is the same: short, fun […]

Ptarmigan Cirque

July 8, 2017. This was a family outing with kids, aged between 5 and 11. Ptarmigan Cirque is definitely in my top 3 in terms of best hikes to do with kids (Grassi Lakes and Bear’s Hump would be the other 2 on that list). There’s a bare minimum of uphill slog followed by amazing […]

Table Mountain

June 24, 2017. Table Mountain is in the Castle Wilderness area in Alberta, overlooking Beaver Mines Lake. It’s a challenging hike/easy scramble, with variable options to get to the top. Ambrosi describes the on-trail approach in his Southern Rockies Trail Guide, and Nugara describes a scramble route in More Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies. Since this was […]