With an early start, we arrived at the Kananaskis Lakes to a clear sky and a promising day.

We hiked around the lake, past the Forks and with a bit of back-tracking found a promising avalanche slope leading to the south end of Mt Putnik (pronounced Poot-nik, as Peter pointed out).

Ascending the south slopes of Mt Putnik

Steep slopes of grass and rubble finally gave out to a bench a little above treeline. This was a good place for lunch with great views to the west and south. Here is the group with Mt's. Joffre, Northover and Lyautey in the background.

Lunch on the bench of Mt Putnik

We continued up, traversing left over easier ground to about 8500 ft. By this time, we were running out of time. We took some time to admire the views. Particularly striking were Three Isle Lake and Mt. Worthington to the west.


Three Isle Lk and Mt Worthington

To the south, Mt. Lyautey was very impressive.

Mt Lyautey

We descended back to the bench, then traversed down to the valley to the west. The trip down was through scree, a rubbly and slippery creek and fairly thick avalanche brush to the trail.

A couple of hours of hiking brought us back to the car. A look back at Mt. Putnik.

Mt Putnik

A long day (11 hours), but with great fall weather. We appreciated how lucky we were when we encountered black weather and rain on the journey home.

Thanks to all participants - Arnold, Peter, Pat (guest), and Ricardo. Coordinator/scribe - Bill.