The day started off with a small bear cub beside the access road to the Fireside parking lot, which was munching on a breakfast of berries. No sign of Momma despite our watching it for five minutes. On exiting the cars we found there were other creatures on the prowl for breakfast, in this case mosquitoes with our blood on the menu. After dosing with Deet we headed off up through a warm forest under mostly cloudy skies. Once breaking out of the trees we had a short break in windy conditions which helped keep down the bugs. Then it was into Gargoyle Valley:



Looking up Gargoyle Valley

where we saw our only other mammal:

marmot in Gargoyle Valley

the we toiled up the scree trail to Cory Pass:

Gargoyle Valley: Scree trail to Cory Pass

Gargoyle Valley scree trail

Most had lunch on a windy ridge just above the east side of the pass, it was not all that warm with an official Wally temperature of 14C at the end of lunch:

Cory Pass lunch

Most moved down to the shelter of some low trees in the pass where some even donned gloves and put on long pants:

Cory Pass resting spot

Things warmed up as we headed lower:

Wally, Mario & Ron on Cory Pass trail

and Barb demonstrates her technique on the small rock ridge on the descent:

Barb (perhaps exagerating the difficulty) on the steep bit

There was one more stop at the grassy knoll with fine views of the Bow Valley (and heavy traffic on the TransCanada) and a strong, now-warm wind to keep the bugs away. After fending off the bugs in the parking lot, a couple of cars stopped at Beamers for coffee on the way home.

Thanks to participants Wally, Mario, Kathy, Barbara, Ron, Tony, Petra, Laszlo, & Nardi. Ron, scribe & coordinator.