Saturday, July 17, 2010

More Mountain Madness!

Another stellar day was spent hiking in the Rockies... This time, Todd and I ventured out into K-Country, where we hiked to Smuts Pass and Birdwood Lakes. What an interesting trail!

 
 

It was an awesome mix of complete bushwhacking to open marshland to alpine meadows... with an amazing array of peaks in our view the entire time. The lake at the end of it all was beautiful as well!


Had there not been quite as much snow lingering on the lower slopes of Birdwood, we perhaps would have continued on to Birdwood Pass. I was a little hesitant to cross the steep-ish snow, since my feet felt very tender today and I was not as sure-footed as I usually am. All I could envision was a nasty, unexpected 'glissade' down one of the snow gulleys - and I wasn't really in the mood for that!

 

I'm hoping we can head back at some point and start at Burstall Pass, do the Birdwood Traverse, and end on the trail we took today. Later in August or early in September would likely be ideal.

 

At any rate, it was a rare, cloudless, blue-sky day and we enjoyed every minute of it! Yeah!

Cheers!


Smuts Pass / Birdwood Lakes
Time (car to car): 6 hours
Distance: 17km
Elevation Gain: ~820m

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

WHERE did the dog with a backpack appear from ??,,,as always on your travels,,more lovely and unique photos,,,, dunkster,,,,

Cheryle said...

We met some people on the trail who were camping along the way... the poochie carried his own sleeping pad, food, blanket, etc. He was super cool!!

Cliff said...

Hey Cheryle,
you need to get one of them backpacking dogs to haul your camera gear! Then you could take some really big telephoto lenses and more equipment on your hikes!