Mount Rundle (ter repetita)

Before the start of the workshop, Devin, François and I went up Mount Rundle. This mountain is just behind the town of Banff and the hike is a straightforward scramble with an elevation gain of 1570 meters. Nonetheless, this was my third attempt at it as on both previous visits to Banff, I was under time constraints and had to turn back before the top… This time, we made it to the summital ridge if not to the actual top. Compared with both previous visits, there was much more (hard frozen) snow on the final part. This made for an easier climb, compared with fighting the painful scree under it, but this got me a bit worried of possible slips as we did not have crampons or an ice-axe (or even hiking poles). And I had stupidly left my gloves down in Banff, lulled by the non-freezing temperature in town…

When we arrived on the ridge, I got even more worried of the possibility of a (potentially dramatic) slip and decided to turn back (along with Devin and François) at the spot on the picture above where there was no hand hold and a very narrow passage between a vertical drop of hundreds of meters and the gentler if steep slope of the slab. (So, technically, this is yet another failed attempt at Rundle, grumble grumble!) On the way down, the clouds disappeared in the ten minutes we spent crossing down the snowy area and we got great views of the Banff ranges. It took us a bit over 6 hours to complete the trip, so it was a very good half-day excursion before the workshop.