Our overnight backpack to Moose Mountain combined several novelty elements to produce an all-round unique adventure close to home yet different from the routine of “Moose Mountain—normal route.”

First, we camped on the mountain—a Ramblers first, right at the point where the Academy-award winning movie “Brokeback Mountain” was filmed. This is our re-enactment of the famous poster for the movie, except that instead of two Wyoming cowboys we have two Alberta hikers in this scenic spot. Controversy over the “mature content” plot of the movie aside, if there were an Oscar for best scenery, this would have won hands down.

Second, we went for the view day and night. We camped here on the large, flat plateau where the movie scenes of the young cowboys herding sheep, were filmed. More important to our agenda, we had a bird’s eye view of the Calgary Stampede fireworks. The night offered spectacle after spectacle, and another party of 8 teenagers camped a little higher on the mountain probably wondered about the old timers’ loud “oohs” and “ahs” with every burst of fireworks, passing satellites, landing planes, the expanse of lights of a city of nearly a million, a planet, the stars and the nearly full moon.

In the evening we were treated to horizon after horizon silhouetted in the western sky.

Third, we varied the usual route, adding the grassy ridge where some of the movie was shot. We first did this ridge on a day trip a couple of years ago.

After partying hardy to midnight, and enjoying the finest Sunday morning imaginable, with daylight at 4 a.m. and sunrise over the flat horizon at 5:36 a.m., clear blue sky and warm temperature, we made the easy-going descent down the ridge and across to the unnamed hill we decided to call “Laid Back Mountain.”

We saw a marmot at the lookout, two deer near our camp and a grouse with several chicks on the trail.

The group poses on the helipad at Moose Mountain lookout, where the lookout couple treated us to a demonstration of their fire spotting work and tools. From the left: Jim, Mark, Carl, coordinator and scribe, Karen, Susan, Anita, and Joyce.

The weather was hot, buggy and muggy, but visibility was very good with only a band of forest fire smoke along the horizon. We returned to the cars by 1:15 just before the convective storms quickly built up to the east to bring severe thunderstorms to Calgary and the plains, and headed for Bragg Creek for ice cream.