What a difference sunshine makes! It was pleasantly warm as we started up the climbers trail to the base of the Yamnuska cliff and there were a few flowers to tax our memories of floral designations after the winter layoff. First up were some exquisite yellow lady’s slippers:

We were sweating by the time we had cover the vertical to the cliff base where we took and break and contemplated the route ahead:

We progressed along the traverse trail with fine views and occasional interruptions of “off belay” from climbers above:

After slogging up the backside scree trail we had a fine viewpoint for lunch and looked across at Barrier Lookout to see if we had beat Ghulam’s group to a summit:

They were not quite visible through binoculars. As can be seen in our summit photo:

there were clouds off to the north which starting emitting thunderous rumblings, and although they didn’t seem to be coming quickly in our direction, we did not linger too long before heading down. We had fun descending the loose scree:

In the lower forested section there seemed to be a lot more flowers present than we had noted on the way up- blue eyed grass, various violets, geraniums, mountain lady’s slipper, meadow parsnip, wind flowers & many others. Perhaps the sun had convinced them to open, although it may just be that we not very alert on the way up.

The parking lot was overflowing when we returned. Since we were back relatively early we stopped off at the casino on the return to replenish our electrolytes. Thanks to Laszlo, Barbara, Kathy & Ginger for joining me, Ron (C/S/P).

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