After hooking up with Bill at the Burstall pass trailhead we headed out about 8:30 am. On another trip earlier this year Alda made me aware of a trail up the east bank of French creek that avoids having to cross French creek which we took this day too. It is flagged and easy to follow and connects up the Transalta dam access road, skid roads and a bit of trail. I had a GPS track from Bob Spirko that we used to find the exit point from the good trail up French creek. Kevin noted that the unofficial French creek trail has seen some "chainsaw love" since he hiked it 4-5 years ago and is good and easy travel. I was pleased to be reassured we were in the correct drainage when we saw the feature in the drainage Bob Spirko calls "the gates". We exited out of the drainage just after "the gates" and headed up on grass that turned eventually to the scree we were expecting.



Kevin just above "the gates" on the scramble route up Mt Cegnfs

We slogged up the scree to the first summit of the day: Mt Cegnfs getting to the summit about 11:40 I think. It was cool and we all put on extra layers and in my case I pulled out my toque.



Heading up the last section of the Mt Cegnfs ridge

John on the summit of Mount Cegnfs

After a short break we headed along the connecting ridge to Mt Murray. As we traversed this ridge it looked like there was a goat trail below us that we thought we would use on return to avoid climb Cegnfs a second time.



Mount Murray from the summit of Mount Cegnfs

We followed a pretty good trail up and around to the south side of Murray's summit block.



John and Bill at the base of the Mt Murray summit block

Counting ascent and descent we ended up  doing 4 different routes up/down the summit block. Bill followed the beaten path to the ridge while Kevin and I scrambled a gully which was further east than the Kane gully / chimney. On descent Bill and I followed the top part of the Kane route I think but found a different scree loaded chimney to descend. Kevin successfully found the Kane gully route.



Kanes ascent gully at the summit block

None of these routes was difficult. I think we got to the summit around 1:30 pm.



Kevin, John and Bill on the summit of Mount Murray

Looking NW towards Mt Birdwood from the summit of Mount Murray

After picking out mountains and glaciers and a bit of lunch we headed down. We did shortcut the summit of Cegnfs occasionally finding bits of goat trail but interspersed with some scree side hilling then a fast scree run back to grass.



Mt Murray with Kevin on the descent

We were back at the cars around 5:15 pm. During the day the weather was pretty good though the real big peaks hid their high points.



Upper valley of French Creek with Mt Sir Douglas in the clouds

On the drive back to Calgary Kevin and I saw a large dark coloured grizzly by Lower Kananaskis lake. The scree was better than I was expecting and the trip time shorter at a little under 9 hours in the good company of Kevin and Bill. Thanks guys from John  ... and thanks Kevin for the photos.