The group left the trail head at 8:45 AM under clear skies.

Grizzly Peak from HWY 40

It was the usual steep grunt up the trail and we soon worked our way up the short easy scramble bit below the shoulder of the Peak.


Zora on the the only scramble bit on the route

The trail was dry and snow free until the last half a kilometre before the col.

Jeanette on the upper section of the trail below the col

From that point the group took a diagonal line of intermittent snow and vegetated slope. Once at the col, we angled left up the snow slope to the summit of Grizzly Peak.


Mount Packenham and the Opal Range from the summit of Grizzly

There was a short tricky cornice right at the summit that had to be be negotiated with great care.

Lunch on the summit of Grizzly Peak

David negotiating the tricky cornice right at the summit

At the summit Brian serenaded us with "Look on the Bright Side of Life" from the Monty Python movie - the Life of Brian. After a pleasant lunch with great views, the group headed back down to the col.


The gang at the col before heading down

At this point we split into 2 groups of 5, taking different routes to reach the trail lower down. One of the group experienced significant issues with his leg muscles and had to move at a much slower pace.

Very curious young sheep on the way down the trail

After we had all reunited on the trail, we were visited by two very curious young sheep in the rocks just above the trail. The group slowly made their way back down the trail to the vehicles without incident. My thanks to David,Gary,Susan,Jeannette,Brian,Zorica,Simon,Toshiko,David for their great company and for sharing a day in the mountains with me Kevin C/S.

I have never seen as many cars parked at every location along Hwy 40 as there was on Sunday. There were lots of people everywhere. We met up with about 20 persons ( in groups of 2 to 5) on the trail back down to the vehicles.

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