With the prospect of a hot day, a glacier destination held out hope of not overheating. We headed out to Canmore and up the dusty road towards Spray Lakes. There were a number of bighorns beside the road, perhaps the dust from the passing cars keeps the insect pests away?

We continued on to the Old Goat parking lot where a couple of locals strolled by without voicing a greeting:

Our starting temperature was 16C and the first couple of kilometres were quite pleasant where the shady trail parallels the creek. Emerging from the trees we had a nice view of the headwall and the waterfall cascading from above:

It was a little different from my last trip (pre-2013 flood), there is so much loose rubble from the flood that the creek must flow through it and there is no longer a creek crossing at this point. For the next section it is steep and exposed to the sun:

Nothing to do but put one's mind in neutral and trudge up the dusty and steep rough trail to the tree line. Here the character changed again as we switched over to the top of the moraine for a somewhat less steep section to the upper end of the valley:

Along this rather desolate terrain there are a number of flowering plants clinging to life, including alpine fireweed and the following:

  From here we looked up and were treated to the sight of a couple of mountain goats grazing some ways above us on the sides of the ridge.

We stopped where the terrain became precipitous for our lunch:

There was a nice cooling breeze and one thermometer registered 21C; some participants even resorted to extra clothing so as not to cool too much. While there we noticed some visitors had arrived a little downslope of our position and one of our stragglers got quite close to take a photo:

Also while we were there a whole flock of gray-crowned rosy-finches flew on to a nearby snow patch and hopped their way up the slope feeding on something, probably springtails (collembola) which can be found in spring snowbanks.

Even a lone chipmunk scampered by, although what it would subsist upon was not apparent. After a long leisurely lunch we headed back down but were able to take a somewhat easier path to descend:

With the opportunity of a side trip we scrabbled our way down to the tarn that is below the end of the glacier and serves to feed the waterfall below. It was quite full with some half-drowned trees sticking out of it. Those who took the opportunity to dunk their feet in it found it was numbingly cold, so there were no expressions of interest to go swimming:

At this point the participants were noticing the lack of bushwhacking so far on the trip, so we thrashed our way through the forest back to the main trail. It was quite a bit warmer as we descended the steep section, so we were happy to re-enter the trees for the shady walk alongside the burbling creek back to the cars, arriving at 4:30 to 28C temperature.

Thanks to a great group of hiking companions: Rosanne, Philip, Ron C/S/P,Kathy (photos), Nardi, Barbara, Norman, Bill (photos), Aldis, Mario and Shirley.