Mount Backus

January 13, 2019. A tedious climb to a low summit in the Castle Wilderness. Distance: 6.25 km round-trip Total elevation gain: 478 m Elevation of objective: 1800 m Hiking time: 3h 13m Steep, uphill bushwhacking. Barbed wire. Copious deadfall. Traveling through trees. Bare ground alternating with thigh-deep snow. These are the features that await on […]

Saskatoon Mountain

January 5, 2019. A straightforward winter hike to a low summit in the Crowsnest Pass. Distance: 8.29 km round-trip Total Elevation Gain: 495 m Elevation of objective: 1820 m Round-trip time: 3h 17m As is typical at the start of the winter season, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a chance to […]

Carbondale Hill

March 17, 2018. A moderately challenging snowshoe trip up to a fire lookout in the Castle Wilderness. Carbondale Hill is the site of a fire lookout and is featured as a hiking or snowshoeing trip on a number of blogs, as well as Nugara’s book. I had an unscheduled day and the weather was friendly: […]

Island Ridge

March 11, 2018. A snowshoe trip up a low mountain in the Crowsnest Pass with moderate elevation gain, in challenging snow conditions. This is a trip I’ve been sizing up since the beginning of the winter. It’s described by Dave McMurray on his amazing Peaks and Streams blog, which drew the attention of Andrew Nugara, […]

Tunnel Mountain and Stoney Squaw Mountain

February 10 & 11, 2018. Two easy snowshoe trips to the tops of a pair of low mountains in Banff. I had a conference in Banff over the past weekend, so part of my preparation was making some plans to snowshoe. There was a winter storm which rolled through the province just before the start […]

Grass Pass to “Sheep Summit”

January 5, 2018. A solo, moderately challenging snowshoe trip to an unnamed high point in the Highwood region of Kananaskis Country. Southern Alberta is about one week out from its most recent major snow dump. I spent most of December 30, 2017 shovelling snow off various driveways. Actually, I can’t ever remember spending so much […]

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, […]