At the tail end of their trip last year, it was clear to me that my parents could handle more than just your average trail hike. I suggested that this year, we try something a little more challenging.
Heart Mountain is probably one of the easier scrambles in the Bow Valley. The day can be long due to the traverse along the ridge and hitting all 3 (or 4, or 5, depending on how generous your definition is) summits, but there are only 3 distinct difficult spots, none of which posed any problems for our group.
We started our day leisurely with a cappuccino at Frank and Tiiu's, then made our way to the Quaite Valley trailhead. This was to get the flat, boring section out of the way at the start.
The mosquitoes were crazy! I counted 137 confirmed killings by the end of the day.
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| The Sofa Tree |
Our pace was slow as the relentless uphill took a toll on my parents. However, we managed to reach the first summit after about 4 hours.
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| Hitting the tail end of wildflower season |
We reached the summit of Heart Mountain at 5h30m, where we took a long break, had our second lunch, then prepared to start going down. The views into the Highway 40 valley and Mount Baldy were quite nice.
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| The summit, with minimal cairn and trail register |
Once we got below treeline, the mosquitoes started swarming again since the wind and the dragonflies were no longer present. However, we got back to the car, about 8h30m after we had started. Great job to my parents, who are no longer just hikers ... they are scramblers!
endomondo workout
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