Mary Barclay's Mountain: bike approach Scramble on 13-Jul-2019

After some car pooling near Calgary, we left the popular Troll Falls parking lot by 8.30am for the relatively easy mountain bike ride north along Stoney Trail to the base of Mt. Mary Barclay, south ridge. We stashed the bikes and started through the forest at 9.20am in foliage soaked with dew. It wasn't long before we gained the south ridge and started up following a beaten trail with some cairns.

We took a few breaks in the warm sunshine and also to admire the increasing views. The ridge gets steeper and narrower near the summit, but relatively stable rock provided interesting SC6 scrambling before meeting the other Rambler group at the summit for lunch at 11.50am

Ramblers ascend Mt. Mary Barclay

Originally about 15 were interested in this trip. So to avoid disappointment, Clifton and I David agreed to organise 2 groups, 30 minutes apart. This worked amazingly well, with the Canmore group consistently about 30 minutes ahead of the the Calgary group to minimise rock fall hazard, as planned. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch before starting back down via the col into the drainage at 1.00pm.

Mel, Manfred and Inge on the summit of Mt. Mary Barclay

Terry and Bruce enjoy lunch on the summit of Mt. Mary Barclay

Despite some tricky cliff bands, we made the creek bed which we followed back to the bikes which we reached at 3.30pm. This creek bed was not pretty and seemed to go on for ever, but rewarded one member with a "new" hiking pole found amongst the debris. There were a few spots of rain before we arrived back at the busy parking lot by 4.30pm. A small black bear was pottering around the woods adjacent to Stoney Trail about 100 metres north of the cars, but was uninterested as we passed only about 20 metres away. Most of us continued to the excellent club barbecue held at a nearby group picnic area. IMO: great trip and barbecue.

Stats: cycle ~10km return, 10km hike return, 850m elevation gain in 8 hours car to car. Good scrambling but rather ugly drainage descent. However descending the ascent route would be tricky especially on the narrow exposed ridge which slopes downwards. Occasionally, I used all fours going up, but going down on all fours?

Participants: Terry,David,Manfred,Inge,Mel,Bruce