Saturday, October 30, 2010

Hallowe'en High

I was determined I was going to hike this weekend, come hell or high water!  I was prepared to solo to a summit somewhere, but when I found out that friends were heading to King Creek Ridge, a place I have been wanting to go to, I was on board!  Well!  As it turns out, we did  have some hell and a little high water and I was on board, a piece of board, a broom stick!

Right from the King Creek parking lot, our ascent started!  It was relentless! We covered a large portion of the elevation over a short period of time, which brought us to amazing views quickly.  Here you can see the Kananaskis Lakes in the distance.  Note, we are higher than the clouds that hoover over the mountain range at the far end of the lakes.  Note too, if you look at the middle of the long brown road that runs perpendicular to the mountains and where it forms the letter "u" to the right of it, you will see where we parked the cars.
Hallowe'en is all about hell and the devil, scray places and people and things.  While tomorrow is Hallowe'en, some of us felt the effects of it today.  You never know what lurks in the mountains especially at this time of year.  
On our final push to the summit, the view became spectacular!  It was a beautiful autumn day on our ridge with no snow and lovely warm temperatures when not far to the west on other ridges, winter it is!  The mountain colors of gold, bronze and silver gave the feeling of an olympic sized day!
I was flying high when we reached the summit!  It was a place to feel high today, with a 360 degree view under a clear blue sky, we had a sparkly birthday celebration in honour of Srambled Legs.   It was quite gusty at the top which made for perfect flying conditions but not for lounging around for long conditions.  After lunch and our celebration, we began our descent.
I took one last look up and across at Opal Range before it was time to keep my eyes down for the careful and hellish at times descent into the gully.  It was steep and slow going.  I needed my poles all of the time, my microspikes for part of the time, and a hand to hold in one very very short section.  Thank you for the helping hand!  
We dealt with hell, now comes the high water!  We followed King Creek back to the trail head where we had many creek crossings using rocks as stepping stones and logs as bridges. These were slippery at times and some friends found out how high the creek water actually was.  The Creek wound through the most amazing canyon which I believe is worthy of a photography hike all of its own.  
King Creek Ridge and Creek and Canyon were gorgeous places to be today! 
A few of us stopped at the Pub for drinks and dinner for a toast to our adventure!  I love when at the end of a day, you realize that it was special and a perfect one.  They don't happen often, but when they do I am so very thankful.  Today I was flying so high that I felt like I was "on top of the world"!

4 comments:

  1. Beautiful report of your last adventure Alexandra! Nice photo of the Kananaskis Lakes which you took while you were higher than the clouds.
    Have a nice Halloween Sunday Alexandra!

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  2. Happy Halloween! Wonderful photographs of a perfect day and amazing places!

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  3. So beautiful! Love the photos and the witch :)

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  4. For a second I thought the witch was really flying! Great pictures!

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