Thankfully I managed to stay up right. My friend Barry, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. I counted four slips tumbles on the hard pack ice.
It was the Friday of my first week of holiday. I was staying close to home because I have a night course that I am taking. I had met Barry to summit Snow Peak in Kananaskis. I don’t usually drive this far into Kananaskis country so I was excited to explore some place new.
We arrived at the Burstall Pass parking lot around 8:30 a.m. This area is very popular in the summer so I was surprised not to see any other vehicles in the lot. The moody sky likely kept the masses away. Across the highway in the Chester Lake parking lot, there were half a dozen vehicles.
Mud Lake (above) was the first of a few lakes hidden by a wall of trees along the trails. Later we would pass Hograth Lakes and Burstall creeks.
The trail report had said no snow and muddy in areas. Sure, after 4.5 kilometres, we reached a dry patch. The first bit was so icy. A pair of Kahtoolas would have helped but neither one of us had thought there would be much snow let alone all the icy patches.
At one point in the trees, we considered turning around but those thoughts didn’t last long as we were almost to the meadow. It would have been a shame to drive all this way without reaching at least the pass. We just took our sweet time because our trail shoes were barely keeping us in the game.
I am glad we kept moving otherwise we wouldn’t have seen these amazing view. By the time we reached the meadow, the wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped slightly. The sky was still moody as heck but the views made it worth it.
We started heading up Snow Peak as the winds continued to kick up. Neither one of us was really feeling the climb. All our energy was spent trying to navigate the ice. Besides it would be a quick up and down because we didn’t want to stay still very long because of the chill in the air.
We called it a day about 800 metres from the summit of aptly-named Snow Peak. I will definitely add this peak to my 2022 list of mountains. I can see why it’s such a popular destination with Mount Birdwood, Pig’s Tail and Commonwealth mountains in the distance.
We passed a trio of women who were wearing spikes. We chatted for a few minutes about the weather and the unexpected snow and ice. They wished us luck as we headed down. It turns out we needed it as it took us a good chunk of time navigating this one particular icy section in the trees. My core muscles definitely got a work out that Friday!