Today is Brought to You by the Letter "E"!

My expectation for the first day of this Easter long weekend was that we would summit the Easy Edge of Rundle. That's what I like to call it but really, EEOR stands for East End of Rundle. Mount Rundle is some 20 kilometers long, beginning in Banff and running East to Canmore. The purple Good Friday dot marks our destination with the photo being taken after half of the elevation was completed already.

I had some expectations for today! Not only was I expecting to bag EEOR but I expected I would eventually end up down to my short sleeve Patagonia tech shirt along the way, but as you can see by looking at the bottom photo here with Ha Ling Peak behind me, I'm still in four upper layers. We had fantastic views of Ha Ling Peak for the majority of our scramble. It is located just east of EEOR. Some buddies were bagging it today and I looked for them but no success.

Another expectation was that we would have clear views of Canmore far down below us! The view could not have been more exceptional than this. We're not even on the summit here so it could only get better.

We came across a fair amount of new spring snow which made sections of the scramble a little dicy, so I was thankful to have my stabilicers to strap on. There was more hands on along the route then I had ever experienced before, so I have to call today, another graduation day! As expected, Victory, my pole position says so! I'm on the summit of EEOR with Canmore behind and below me.

Now for the coolest thing! A hiking buddy on the summit with me has relatives in Canmore. They have their super duper camera with a super duper lens set up. With a phone call from the summit to send notification of our achievement, they spot us! It's amazing how technology can bring folks together these days!

I was ecstatic to be on this summit today! Looking around at the smiles of my buddies, the feeling was mutual. On a perfect day weather-wise this would have been a fabulous spot to dine but we chilled off pretty quickly with the cold wind and decided to descent some meters to find a sheltered spot. Once we found a perfect spot, I sat down to take a load off and devour my lunch only to find after a few bites we were loading back up again. With my lunch hanging out of my mouth, we carried on to finish our descent.

The rock formations never fail to catch my eye! If you look closely in the bottom left photo, you will spy a few of my buddies up ahead of me. I like how the cairns mark our way. One day I will erect one of my own! The bottom right photo is what we arrived at upon the end of our descent. The grey/blue on the side reflects in the emerald colored water.

What a way to start the Easter long weekend! Even though this is Easter and not Thanksgiving, I give thanks to be able to experience, what felt to be like a great expedition! Today was rewarding with the gift being, feeling like I was "on top of the world"!