Sunday, 23 August 2015

Jimmy Simpson

A few weeks ago, I did a hike with a group of people to Mt Jimmy Simpson. It is a peak above Bow Lake / Bow Falls and has views of surrounding peaks and glaciers, and it is near the beginning of the Icefields Parkway (the road to Jasper). 
It was a challenging hike, steep and mostly rocky and boulder terrain, we did a fair bit of scrambling, and there was no real defined path (because it was mainly just rocky fields and ledges). The way up was fun until we got to the scree area before the saddle where you walk along the ridge to the peak. We got to the scree area at about 4pm and it was very steep, loose and difficult. We saw some people come down as we were getting closer to the first of the two saddles, and they set off some fairly large rocks / small boulders to run down the hill. We were all out of the way, but it was a little scary to see the size and speed of those rocks. We started the hike at 10 am and because we still weren't at the peak (or the saddle), and because of the loose and challenging scree / rock run, we decided to turn around. It is good that we did turn around because we didn't get back to the cars until 6pm (and then we had the 3 hr drive back to Calgary). It was a long day but we had some beautiful scenery, great weather and good company.
Here are some shots from parts of the hike.
xo
Bow Lake

Bow Lake 

View of Bow Lake from the hike 

View of Bow Lake
View of the saddle and the scree hill (the "trail" goes next to the snow patch), the peak is to the right (out of view) 

View back, just as we turned around

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