When I posted this trip to the Calendar on Thursday it was raining heavily in Calgary and the forecast for the weekend did not look great. I was, consequently, apprehensive we would not get a good day Sunday with lots of people put off by the weather. I also put on the Calendar entry "Snow?" - with a question mark. So I was pleasantly surprised when the fairly large group of Ron, David, Jeannette, Manfred, Chau, Norman, Kevin, Damian and Jeannine were not put off by the weather or the threat of snow and joined me, John on what turned out to be a pretty good day.

Some of us parked on the #1 highway pull off near Heart creek with one car parking in the trailhead parking. We agreed to regroup at the "crux step". Actually on the couple of times I have done this trip in snowy / icy conditions I think a shady gully above this step, which tends to hold snow and ice, may be more of a crux in snowy / icy conditions.

Jeannette and Jeannine just after the snowy / icy gully on Heart mountain in late May

Not too bad though and we all regrouped for a break at the summit. After this break we set off for Grant MacEwan peak initially on a broken trail. Unfortunately, however, our predecessors turned back after a short distance along the ridge. Jeannine and Kevin were stalwart trailbreakers for us after this in surprisingly deep snow.


Jeannine breaking trail on the ridge between Heart and Grant MacEwan in late May

John, Chau, Jeannette, David, Norman, Damian, Jeannine, Manfred and Ron on the ridge between Heart and Grant MacEwan

We arrived at Grant MacEwan for another rest stop for a lunch break.


Kevin our Grant MacEwan trailbreaker.

As we lunched several other parties passed by having taken advantage of Kevin and Jeannine's work. These folks did return the favour though as our descent trail was well broken when we resumed.


Ron heading down from Grant Macewan on the eastern leg of the Heart mountain loop

Back at the cars just after 3:00 pm with the parking much busier after a better than expected day with pleasant temperatures and not much wind but with no question? about it we had snow! .... and more than I expected.Thanks everyone for coming out and cooperating well in the large group.

Jeannine (behaving herself!), John, Manfred, Jeannette, Kevin, Damian, Norman, Chau, Ron and David at a rest stop on the eastern leg of the Heart Mountain loop