Finding the Top of the World

Oh. My. God. I can't wait to do this one again. As the gentleman I walked with at the top said, there are very few people who will ever see the world the way we saw it today. This was a challenging hike.

I started from the parking lot and ended up behind a large group that got on the path ahead of me. After about half a kilometre, they stopped to wait for some stragglers, and I got by. At 800 metres, was the split in the path, just like the map said. A sign warned that the path was a scramble, with exposed parts. Two couples started past as I read this, so I decided to follow them.

This was a steep climb, but an easy one. Most of it was a blur. What I remember most was how fast the altitude number on the GPS increased. Keeping up with the foursome ahead of me was a challenge, as they were charging up the slope.

About half way, I climbed a bit of a break in the rock, and suddenly found myself among several people. There were six resting on a relatively flat place, while one of them bandaged herself. An Austrian girl had slipped and managed to cut her knee and her hand. It turned out that the injuries were minor.

From here the foursome gained on me. I would lose sight of them, then catch up when they stopped to rest. Some of the climbing was pretty dicey looking to have to come back down on, but wasn't too bad to climb. Lots of places, I was looking for firm handholds before moving my feet.

Every once in awhile, I would stop and look around. What an unbelieveable view. The canyon to the right, where Heart Creek flows, felt like it was right by my elbow. The rock face dropped off nearly vertically. Across to the other side was another formidible rock face rising up to the ridge that leads to Mount McGillivray.

Directly below when I turned to face the valley, was Lac Des Arcs and the town of Exshaw. Just to the right of that, and behind, was Loder Peak and Door Jamb Mountain. Farther right was the impressive wall of Yamnuska. To the east, the TransCanada and 1A highways, and the Ghost Reservoir in the distance. Just over the shoulder of the ridge to the west was Canmore.

At about 1930 metres, my cell phone range. Even up there, coverage is remarkably good. After a short chat with Roxanne, I was off again.

Looking up at the mountain, especially along the west side of the heart shaped formation that gives the mountain its name, it looks completely impassible. But as you make your way up, the path stays very obvious. At one point there is a climb of about three metres, up a crack in rock face that runs nearly the whole side of the formation. That's about the hairiest part of the whole climb, and not really that bad at that. However, I think going down through that would be tricky.

Lots more scrambling, and eventually, the top. The same as I described above, but more so. And looking down where we came from, it seems almost impossible that we were able to climb that way. I stood and took it all in for awhile. And my phone rang again. Byron saying hi.

From there, a ridge runs south to another peak. Another man and I headed that way, and after picking our way through a couple of snowbanks, we were on a well marked path to the next peak. This ridge was unbelieveably narrow. It wasn't really scary to be on, but the part we could actually walk on seemed only a few metres wide. It dropped off incredibly steeply either way.

In just under an hour we were there, and there was another crowd lounging. On man had wandered even farther south along another ridge. It looked much the same as what we had just traversed, only more so. At the far end was a jagged peak, un-named on my map. To the east was Barrier Lake, where I had hiked a month ago.

I headed northeastward on my own, continuing along the ridge that makes the loop of this hike. More snow, and it was deep. Luckily there were several footprints through it, so it wasn't too hard to get through. But it was easily two metres deep in places.

The ridge continued narrow, with steep, near-vertical drops on either side. I could see the place I had reached on the hike from Barrier Lake, as well as the Barrier Lake fire lookout that was very close to that point. Along the way were lots of crocuses, as well as several other kinds of flowers blooming.

It was a wonderful journey across this ridge to the last peak on the trail. I stopped there to return Byron's call, since we lost the connection on the first peak. Below to the east was the TransCanada Trail, and I thought I could see the Jewel Pass Trail that I climbed from Barrier Lake

And then the long descent. It seemed to go on forever. This is where I realized how much I had climbed on the first leg of the hike. This part of the trail was not nearly as challenging as the climb, but there were still lots of places where I needed to use handholds.

Eventually, I descended into forest, and yet it was still a steep descent. This is where I lost the traffic. There seemed to be no one around. Around 1800 metres the noise from the highway became noticeable. At one point a creek began to gurgle to the left, and eventually the trail paralleled it.

Then suddenly it disappeared and for awhile, I was descending through forest, with only the traffic noise of the highway below. And suddenly I was in a cutline, under a high voltage power line. The trail crossed the cutline, and eventually flattened out (more or less)

Once I got the junction of all the paths, with the sign warning of the scramble, I decided to check out the Heart Creek path. I wasn't sure I had the energy for it. It was quite busy. The trail crosses the creek several times, and at one of them were several people climbing the rock face. At the end of the trail, the canyon narrows to a couple of yards, turns sharply to the left. The creek roars down this narrow channel, with a sound that indicates there must be a pretty impressive falls there. But there's no way to see it as it is around the corner.

By this point, I'm beat. The walk back to the car was uneventful. This was an incredible climb and hike. Once I get a camera, I definitely need to go back and do it again.

Heart Mountain
Starting elevation: 1332 m (4370 feet).
Highest elevation: 2180 m (7152 feet).
Lowest elevation: 1283 m (4209 feet).
Elevation gain: 848 m (2782 feet).
Distance: 13.8 km (8.6 mi).
Time: 5:36.