The local couple that I met on Mount Ward recommended Turtle Mountain for a short/easy scramble during my stay in Crowsnest Pass. This is the notoriously famous mountain that experienced a massive rockslide in 1903, burying the eastern side of Frank, a mining town, and killing 90 people.
The disaster, known as the Frank Slide, is one of Canada’s largest and most deadliest rockslides.
Since that time what was left of the town was relocated and a mountain monitoring station was installed on Turtle Mountain. The site of the disaster is now a tourist destination with interpretive centre.
The mountain, once resembling the curved back of a turtle, now features two summits separated by a jagged, fractured scar where the centre had collapsed.
The Turtle Mountain trailhead starts on the edge of the town of Blairmore. To get an early start, I decided to do some stealth car camping. I was abruptly awakened around 4:30 a.m. by a relentless downpour of rain and hail, which pounded on the roof of my car for about 20 minutes. So much for an early start. I was very slow moving in the morning.
The trail to the true south summit is roughly an eight kilometre out-and-back with about 900 metres in elevation gain. The trail is steep from the get go, not technical, just steep to the ridge. The trail routes through the trees and once you are on the ridge it is obvious where you are headed. There are lovely views of Crowsnest Mountain, Blairmore and the new Frank. You can also see the remnants of wildfires on the mountain.
I reached the false (north) summit and decided to turn around. I still had a long drive ahead of me and I wasn’t sure how long it would take to reach the true summit even though it was less than a kilometre away. I will have to go back because it looked like a fun scramble with the “hodgepodge of fissures, boulders and debris,” as noted in Alan Kane’s Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies.
Plus I need to visit the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre to learn more about the history of the slide, and see the actual spot where the mountain fell.
After the slide, scientists determined that Turtle Mountain was not stable, and there was fear it could come tumbling down again. Scientists are focusing on the south and third peaks of Turtle Mountain, where a series of large cracks suggests that this will be the location of the next large rockslide.
While today the mountain is considered to be at risk of another massive slide – it probably won’t happen anytime soon but it will happen, and the trail continues to be a popular day hike.