After too many summer days of hot, smoky weather, we lucked out – cool temperatures and clear skies. It was an excellent day to do this loop close to Calgary. I confess to being a bit intimated by the caliber of those who signed up to join this hike but they already knew my abilities so I assumed they wanted to come because it was a trip they had not done before. This was the case. Only one of the thirteen had done the entire loop.
Two ridge loop east of Mt. Glasgow
The East and West subpeaks of Mount Glasgow
In the photo above we went up the ridge on the right, crossed over the gap to the ridge on the left, went to its summit then down the ridge to its base. Mt Glasgow is peeking over the edge of the second ridge. We started out at 8:45am and reached the bottom of the first ridge after 30 minutes.
Easy scrambling on the ridge of the East subpeak of Glasgow
We reached the peak of the first ridge in just under 3 hours before having our first lunch. The crossing of the ‘gap’ between the first and second ridges is not very difficult with only one very short, minor exposed section.
The gap between the two ridges and the end of the second ridge
Negotiating the short SC6 section between the two subpeaks
Crossing the gap between the two ridges
The wind near the peaks was rather cool so breaks were short for those who didn't go at the pace of the very fast folks. We reached the top of the second peak around 1:00pm, I think, for our second lunch break.
Scrambling on the ridge of the West subpeak of Glasgow
Last bit of the second ridge - fast hiker already at the top
The descent down the second ridge is mostly a relatively easy off trail except for the section near the peak. We regrouped a number of times as we descended down the ridge and through the trees at the end of the ridge before reaching the horse trail along the valley bottom. We were back at the cars around 4:30pm. According to John Gapp’s gps, we did 16.3km and 1456m. This is a very enjoyable ridge loop. We were fortunate to have excellent weather and a very congenial group of fellow Ramblers. Thank you to all who joined me on this trip.
