South Mt. Kidd Ridge from Guinn's Pass

Ramblers marshalling their resources prior to ascending the ridge to the summit of South Mt. Kidd

Summit party cooling their jets on the summit of Mt. Kidd, South Peak

Mt. Galatea as viewed from the summit of Mt. Kidd, South Peak

The descent from Mt. Kidd, South Peak along the ridgeline.

9 of us left Shouldice at 6:30 am and drove in 3 vehicles to the Galatea Creek Trailhead. It was a warm 20C morning in Calgary and not much cooler at the trailhead. We set off up the trail at about 7:45. After a 10 minute break at the Lilian Lake Guinns Pass junction we headed up to Guinns Pass – some colourful flowers by the trail. Luckily we soon felt a bit of a breeze to cool us down. At the pass at around 10:30 we had good views all around while having a mid morning snack. We then traversed east towards our objective, this was not the best route – in retrospect we would have been better to go over the first top. After another break at the next col where a few snow balls were thrown we climbed up slightly only to descend about the same distance to avoid being above cliffs. Peter was having some leg cramps so did not go much further. The rest of us followed the base of the cliffs to regain the ridge for the rest of the way to the top. Renata, who’d been up Commonwealth Peak the day before decided to have a nap while 7 of us followed the pleasant ridge to what we thought would be the top.

However the top was a bit further away as is often the case! After negotiating some easy but loose rock on the south side of the last section of ridge 7 of us were on the top by 13:10. I’d set a latest departure time of 13:30. But as we were all enjoying the time on top it was 13:50 before we began the return journey. We met up with Renata then Peter then decided to try a short cut down a valley to the trail in order to get to the pot luck in reasonable time. The scree was not runable so it was not a fast descent. About 300m from the trail Peter followed the valley bottom out to the trail while the rest of us came out on the east side of the valley. We probably did not save much time over returning via Guinns Pass. After another break when we reached some water we hiked the remaining 4km out to the vehicles by about 17:30. 3 people went straight back to Calgary while 6 went to enjoy the potluck supper at the Opal picnic area. Participants: Cordula, Renata, Dan Bieber, Jim Paterson, Jim Powers, Doug Davison, Dave M, Peter F and coordinator and scribe Alistair D.