The Smith-Dorrien was quite washboarded as seems to be the case most of the time, as well as quite dusty. We headed up the trail to the junction with the High Rockies trail where a bench provides a good photo op:

Rest stop on the way up. Front: Philip, Barb, Rosanne. Back: Nardi, Chris, Cristina

There was a little smoke in the air but there was still good views at a glassy Rummel Lake:


Rummel Lake morning

Once above treeline the meadows were very scenic showing fall colours:


Cristina in the meadows below Rummel Pass

Colourful ground cover

There was little wind and the views of the surrounding area were quite good as worked our way through the scree sections up towards Rummel Pass:


Boulder field on way to Rummel Pass (Mount Smuts in distance to the west)

We got to the pass about 1pm and a few commented that this was the first time they had been there that it wasn't cold and windy:


Lunch at Rummel Pass

View east from Rummel Pass

After a leisurely lunch we started back down:


Chris leads the way down a scree trail from Rummel Pass

While passing the scree fields there was often occasional squeaking alarms and we did see a couple of pikas running between hiding places in the rubble. There are a couple of dried up tarns en route and in one of them there were a number of different tracks in the sand and mud which taxed our abilities to identify:


animal tracks

Further down in the meadows we came across quite an excavation which included some large rocks that seemed too big to have been moved by a marmot:


That must have been one big marmot!

There were further diggings a little beyond... hmmm, how long ago did my bear spray expire? It was still quite warm when we got back to Rummel Lake and despite some participants alleging they would have gone swimming if they had proper attire, no one was witnessed in getting more than halfway up to their knees in the numbing cold water:


Barbara and Nardi soak their feet in Rummel Lake

From the lake we took the old, more scenic section of trail along the creek


Cristina & Barb carefully pick their way along the cliff beside Rummel Creek

back to the main trail for an uneventful return to the cars. The washboard road seemed to be even worse on the drive back to pavement. There was one magnificent bighorn ram in the middle of the road just after turning onto highway 40, he looked to be in good shape after fattening up over the summer.

Thanks to the participants who helped make this another fine day in Kananaskis: Rosanne, Philip, Barbara, Chris, Nardi and Cristina (photos). Ron C/S/P.