A fine day was enjoyed in the mountains as the clouds stayed either to the west or east of our location. No snow was encountered on the hike and the Stoney Trail was only muddy in a few spots. The group moved along the road briskly to Lorette Creek where we paused to regroup:


Hanging out at the pole

and surveyed our route up the south ridge of Mount Lorette:


Lorette Ridge & bare aspens

There is now a fairly discernable trail through the bare aspen trees, probably from all the climbers on their way to attempt Lorette’s summit. Once through the trees the steep part of the trip commences:


starting up the steep- Lorette Ridge

A couple of participants stopped at the first flat spot but the rest continued on up to a point 330 metres above the Stoney Trail where there was a good view south along the Kananaskis Valley:


Ron on Lorette Ridge

This was a good spot to pause for lunch and we encountered a sure sign of spring: there were ticks in abundance. After a leisurely lunch, most decided to try a little more altitude gain along the climbers trail and racked up almost 200 meters more of vertical.


View of Kananaskis from Lorette Ridge

The views improved a bit and there was another sign of spring: a golden eagle was spotted as it soared along the valley searching for thermals on its migration north. After admiring the view for a while it was time for the descent back to where we had left our packs. Part way down we detected a common sound found in the spring, announcing the presence of a dendragapus obscurus, i.e. a blue grouse, who was parading in all his mating finery:


The drummer boy: blue grouse (dendragapus obscurus)

As usual with this species, he did not seem to worried about a human presence and carried on his drumming with no obvious female grouse in sight (just practicing?).

We continued on down the trail:

Descending Lorette Ridge (Ghulam, Millie & Wally)

It was an uneventful walk back to the cars and most found the distance and vertical gain was of a sufficient amount to ease into the hiking season. Thanks to a great group, John, Emily, Dee, Linda, Anna, Ron, Ghulam, Wally, Jan, Ricardo, Rita and new member Millie. Scribe & photographer Ron.

The official Wally high temperature of the day was 10 degrees.