Those blue sky days hold so much for you. Revelling in the warm sunshine, six Ramblers hiked the scenic trail up Mount Allan. Wildlife viewing was excellent, with sightings of a marmot and nine elk (plus a deer on the drive in). The trail was quite popular as numerous people took advantage of the opportunity.

The wind on the ridge was very strong and cold, so we took only enough time on the summit to point out all the peaks visible in all directions, before heading down to a warm and sunny spot just on the lee side for lunch. Wallace, Aldis, Eva, Paul and Bill on the summit.

A highlight of this hike is the rock garden, with vertically thrust conglomerate spires. From above, it looks like there should be a trail through, in accordance with the TL4 rating of this trip, but we couldn’t find it. Both coming up and going back we had to negotiate a short SC5 section to get through this formation, thus the planned trail hike became a scramble.

We took nine hours including lunch for the 10-hour rated hike, and were back to the cars at 5:45. We all got thoroughly stuffed at the excellent prime rib buffet at the Nakoda Casino, where even the vegetarians were happy with the selection. Coordinator and scribe Carl

---