Sunday, July 31, 2005
Ptarmigan Cirque
Still holding off on running, just to make sure I get a complete recovery from the marathon. But I'm doing some hiking. Today I drove out to the Highwood Pass, which is claimed to be the highest paved road in North America, or at least Canada. Anyway, it's pretty high up, at 2206 metres above sea level.
The parking lot at the top is the trail head to a hike up to Ptarmigan Cirque, a nice, easy hike. Short, quick, and spectacular.
It's a bit of a climb through forest until you get past the trees, but it's a short climb, and the path is well worn.
Once I broke out of the trees, I got a spectacular view of the valley to the south.
And you can see the whole cirque from there, almost. Here's a look forward to the path up the back to the bowl behind, which is where I was heading.
What you don't see in almost all of these pictures is the amazing proliferation of wild flowers. Anywere you see green, you also see every other color. This is what one square foot of the valley floor looks like up close.
With minor variations in colour, every other square foot of the valley that supports plant life looks pretty much the same.
Once up to the end of the cirque and to a ridge of debris from falling rock, you can see around the shoulder of the ridge to the north. On the left is a monstrous pit, with a massive snowbank at the bottom, which is what feeds the ice cold stream that flows through the cirque.
At about 2600 metres, I could hear the wind tearing at the ridge above me. It was a ripping sound, kind of exploding every once in awhile. The power that must have been in those gusts is astounding.
This shows about where I stopped for a snack before starting down. Off the upper left corner of the picture is Mount Rae, at 10,358 feet.
And this is looking down from that perch.
At a guess, I'd say those snowbanks are about a kilometre away. The two people were about a hundred metres downslope. And I'm looking down at at least a 45 degree angle. It's pretty steep. The GPS said I was at 2800 metres, or 9200 feet above sea level.
The wind was pretty stiff, but not too bad. What was surprising was how dusty the path was (and there is a path, though it was pretty hard to find at times). With all the greasy sunscreen I had on my legs, I was pretty well coated.
Because I was around a corner and in this huge bowl, the view was kind of cut off, but here's what I could see of the valley to the south.
The climb took two hours from the parking lot, which I thought was pretty impressive. I was back in the cirque and at the tree line in about an hour. This is the view back to where I was. I would guess the people in the picture were well over a kilometre away.
Another twenty minutes I was in the parking lot. And I was home and in the shower (turning all that dust into mud) by about 1:30.
Pretty spectacular morning.
The parking lot at the top is the trail head to a hike up to Ptarmigan Cirque, a nice, easy hike. Short, quick, and spectacular.
It's a bit of a climb through forest until you get past the trees, but it's a short climb, and the path is well worn.
Once I broke out of the trees, I got a spectacular view of the valley to the south.
And you can see the whole cirque from there, almost. Here's a look forward to the path up the back to the bowl behind, which is where I was heading.
What you don't see in almost all of these pictures is the amazing proliferation of wild flowers. Anywere you see green, you also see every other color. This is what one square foot of the valley floor looks like up close.
With minor variations in colour, every other square foot of the valley that supports plant life looks pretty much the same.
Once up to the end of the cirque and to a ridge of debris from falling rock, you can see around the shoulder of the ridge to the north. On the left is a monstrous pit, with a massive snowbank at the bottom, which is what feeds the ice cold stream that flows through the cirque.
At about 2600 metres, I could hear the wind tearing at the ridge above me. It was a ripping sound, kind of exploding every once in awhile. The power that must have been in those gusts is astounding.
This shows about where I stopped for a snack before starting down. Off the upper left corner of the picture is Mount Rae, at 10,358 feet.
And this is looking down from that perch.
At a guess, I'd say those snowbanks are about a kilometre away. The two people were about a hundred metres downslope. And I'm looking down at at least a 45 degree angle. It's pretty steep. The GPS said I was at 2800 metres, or 9200 feet above sea level.
The wind was pretty stiff, but not too bad. What was surprising was how dusty the path was (and there is a path, though it was pretty hard to find at times). With all the greasy sunscreen I had on my legs, I was pretty well coated.
Because I was around a corner and in this huge bowl, the view was kind of cut off, but here's what I could see of the valley to the south.
The climb took two hours from the parking lot, which I thought was pretty impressive. I was back in the cirque and at the tree line in about an hour. This is the view back to where I was. I would guess the people in the picture were well over a kilometre away.
Another twenty minutes I was in the parking lot. And I was home and in the shower (turning all that dust into mud) by about 1:30.
Pretty spectacular morning.
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