Jeannine, Ricardo, Jeannette, Peter, John and Becky joined me, John, for this trip up Holy Cross on a beautiful day. I was n't sure about how much snow there would be but Carl helped out e-mailing me a picture of the peak taken on Thursday:

Thanks Carl - who needs webcams!

We headed up Gunnery creek around 9:15 am with in an hour (or less?) were up at the pass on the pretty good trail. We met former Ramblers Theresa and Gus at the pass - the only folks we were to see all day - both still looking very fit and well. They were camping and hiking for a few days in the area. Ironically the previous time I had done this trip they were part of a very large Ramblers group that Bob herded up the peak.There followed the mandatory bushwhack on confusing game trails to an open grassy knoll with a good view of the route up the peak all the way to the top.We discussed the route and settled on trying going up via NE ridge and descending down the easier route that follows, more or less, the shaft of the cross that gives the mountain it's name.

We replenished our water supplies with nice cold water at a snow melt waterfall just before the steeper part of the trip started. The ridge is mostly easy scrambling with one or two maybe SC6 cliff bands to entertain you if you liked. I think you could bypass most on the left. For some of the cliff bands though it would be time consuming. The group spread out along the ridge allowing for some nice photo opportunites. I thnk we were all on top by 1:30 am for a late lunch enjoying the view which included a snowy Mist mountain and the skyscrapers of Calgary.

Just below the summit the scree is quite steep and one large rock did get away but, fortunately, missed any people. On reflection we should have split into two groups and left a good gap as some of the group were quite a bit faster than others and we got spread out a bit too much ..... but not enough. The only other excitement was just before we met our uptrack near the waterfall. This was mild grassy terrain, not really scrambling terrain, with a few 1-2 meter rock bands sticking out. One of the party was standing on the edge of one of these when a mass of it gave way with an associated small rock slide with chunks some bigger than a microwave. Fortunately quick athletic moves kept the person vertical and uninjured. Warnings to remember for the future.

We had seen a trail from up high that looked like it might stay high on a talus slope and avoid some of the bushwhacking. We took it and initially it worked well across the scree.After the scree though it petered out and we hit the bush. This good group stayed close together in the bush and eventually we emerged onto the Gunnery creek trail. We were back at the cars by around 5:15 pm.Thanks Jeannine, from my mum, for taking a summit shot with me in it! It was nice to see some folks I have n't seen in a while and enjoy the mountains with - Thanks everyone.