As we found out, the Pumpkin Traverse near Lake Louise is a memorable trip in the right conditions and with the right company. On Saturday 16 Jan 2010, we had both and completed this high level traverse in 9.5 hours.

Leaving Assumption School after waiting a few extra minutes for an expected participant we had an interesting drive between Banff and Lake Louise in slippery conditions and heavy downhill ski traffic before reaching Fish Creek parking about 8.40am. Just before we skied away, the missing member John showed up after meeting no one at the wrong Calgary location. On various equipment varying from skinny touring skis with NNN BC bindings to full AT gear, we puffed up the skiout and into the Purple Bowl on a few cms of new snow. Since it was now 11.45am and the sun was shining with negligible wind, we enjoyed a quick early lunch. Quick, because it was only –12c where it remained all day and because we had plenty of terrain to cover with now about 20 cms of trail breaking.

We soon gained the low point of the ridge north of Purple Mountain by heading straight into the cloudy sun. The views were splendid and we could see Chic Scott’s recommended northerly approach to the west ridge of Unity Peak.

Initially we traversed steep slopes too high, but soon recovered to gain the west ridge of Unity Peak at 2.00pm. As Chic comments, this section needs stable conditions and good visibility to be traversed safely.

At this point the group split with John, Sim and David going for the peak, while the others set off for Redoubt Lake directly. In messy snow it took us an hour to gain Unity Peak, but it was another summit to add to the more than 500 for one member.

We were rewarded with good views and a good ski descent before we joined the track set by the others.

Across the large meadows we headed before angling up to Redoubt Lake and down to Ptarmigan Lake and Boulder Pass where we met the strong trailbreakers as arranged. This section was very pleasant for your scribe on a broken trail (thanks guys) as the sun went down in a clear sky casting nice light on Fossil Mountain etc. Ski touring at its best.

As it was now about 5.00pm, we did not dally at Boulder Pass before setting off down the fast trail to the cars. Headlamps came out for some and I found the now semi-icy skiout a challenge, but others didn’t seem to mind. We were back in Calgary a little before 9.00pm, tired but happy (well, I was). According to Sim’s gizmo, we did 26kms and 1350 m elevation gain in about 9.5 hours with 20cms of trail breaking. It looked possible to gain Baker creek from near Unity peak. Thanks to participants: John, Celine, Sim, Alicja, Joan, John and Terry from c&s David.