Mount Rundle

Mike was coming to a conference in Banff, and this gave me an excuse to take a vacation day mid-week and spend it in the mountains. I was a little concerned by the amount of snow I saw on the summit the past weekend while mountain biking along Goat Creek, but as I had never been on the true summit of Mount Rundle before (I'd done the south summit, which is accessed from Whiteman's Gap), decided it was worth a try.

Alan Kane says not to go up this gully

The first section through the forest is quite dull and tedious, but once the trees started thinning out, we had a fair bit of snow to negotiate.

As we left the treeline, things started getting tricky as some sections were slabs with some loose rock and lots of slush. These did not inspire confidence as we went up the Dragon's Back, and we saw another party heading back down due to the conditions.

Trying not to slide down the slab-and-slush

We eventually made it to the narrowest section of the Dragon's Back, but it was here that we stopped, as there was a good 100 feet of dropoff on either side, and the conditions were very condusive to sliding. So, we enjoyed the view, then headed back down.

The summit of Mount Assiniboine, peaking out through the clouds

The view from where we were, which was probably around 500m from the top, was spectacular. Apparently, Mount Temple is visible as well, but I'm not sure what it looks like from this side, so I wasn't able to isolate it in a shot.

Sulfur Mountain, with the Sundance Range behind it

Moonrise over Pigeon Mountain

As I was driving back home, I saw a full moon rising over Pigeon Mountain, so I did the tourist thing and took a shot from the shoulder of the highway.