Rob and Jude this week did Burstall to see the larch changing on a classic Canadian Rockies day hike. They biked in and out 3km each direction, saving that time for a nap in the sunshine at the Pass.
Elevation Gain: 451 m (1,480 ft).
Great views once on top, with lots of opportunities for further hiking or scrambling.
I would grade this trail as difficult only if Burstall Creek is high (eg. late afternoon, early summer). Otherwise it is a good trail of average to moderate difficulty.
The general consensus of opinion usually names the GR20 high-level route across Corsica as the toughest of the Grande Randonees (SP), but with some justification the Pyranean Haute Route – which teeters across the frontiers of France and Spain – gathers a lot of votes.
GR20 Corsica - by Catching FliesPyrenees - click for more photos from the Wandering Ostrich
Both are long and demanding, have sections without proper paths, and journey through remote country, often far from habitation.
Yet there’s another long and challenging route that is also a contender for the title …
BERLIN (Reuters Life!) – German naturists will soon have their own 18-km (11-mile) long trail for hiking in the nude and some enthusiasts have been trying it out before the official opening next May.
Heinz Ludwig, who runs a nearby campsite, has led the project to create the nudist trail that meanders up and down the Harz mountain range in central Germany, overcoming some local protests by pointing out its potential boost for tourism.
“I think it’s a great way to promote tourism here,” Ludwig told Reuters on Tuesday after Bild newspaper published a picture of two women wearing nothing but rucksacks on the trail. “There’s already been a lot of interest in it.” …
The trail is being marked with special signs warning the uninitiated that they could encounter nude hikers. …
Anyone driving from Calgary towards Banff in the Canadian Rockies wonders what the view would be like from the top of this cliff.
Ha Ling Peak is a peak at the northwestern end of Mount Lawrence Grassi — a mountain located immediately south of the town of Canmore just east of the Spray Lakes road in Alberta’s Canadian Rockies. …
summitpost.org
Garth and I drove up to the mountains on a perfect Fall day. And enjoyed a leisurely half day hike to the top.
Garth
The backside is a relentless but fairly easy slog. This photo gives you a good idea of the angle of ascent.
This was the first time to climb Ha Ling for both Garth and myself.
The name of the mountain has been subject to much controversy. Originally, the mountain was referred to locally as The Beehive. In 1896 Ha Ling, a Chinese cook for the Canadian Pacific Railway (some say the Okaloosa Hotel in Canmore) was bet 50 dollars that he could not climb the peak and plant a flag on the summit in less than 10 hours.
According to the Medicine Hat News of October 24 1896, he started the ascent at 7:00 am the previous Saturday morning and was back in time for lunch. As nobody believed his story, he led a party of doubters to the summit where he planted a much larger flag beside the original, this one visible to the naked eye from Canmore. The townsfolk referred to the mountain as Chinaman’s Peak in his honour.
The name Chinaman’s Peak did not become official until 1980. Later, in 1997 it was renamed Ha Ling Peak as the term Chinaman was viewed as derogatory.
Get the guidebook. I did not have it with me, ending up taking the wrong ridge up. And the wrong ridge down. And missed a highlight, the “Hole in the Wall”.
Taking the wrong ridge is quite common:
… It is imperative that you are at the right spot, as I went up the wrong rib on this mountain years ago and was forced to redo this route in 2005 to complete it. There are several large ribs coming down from Mount Cory. You want the eastern most rib which is identified as light-colored shaley cliffs with a deep ravine to its right.
I was elated to get to the top after 4hrs. To celebrate, I rocked out to Coldplay for a half hour, enjoying the perfect weather close to 3000m. This is rare in the Canadian Rockies, any day of the year.
Chris Townsend in 1988 was the first to walk the continental divide of the Canadian Rockies, a 1600mi challenge. He declared the days from Assiniboine to Sunshine to Lake Ohara the finest section.
Have you seen the new tag line on Tom Mangan’s blog?
Two-Heel Drive is the Web’s oldest regularly updated hiking blog. Born as a general-interest hiking blog in the fall of 2005, it evolved into a Bay Area-focused blog in the summer of 2007. I had to shift focus again in the summer of 2009 because the job situation obliged me to relocate to the Triad region of North Carolina (Winston-Salem/Greensboro/High Point). …
I’m happy to see Tom still leading the way for hiking bloggers.
He’s a big part of a social networking website called EveryTrail.com:
EveryTrail Guides will lead you on your next adventure. Leave heavy guidebooks home – just print or download these guides to your iPhone or GPS to bring along with you. EveryTrail route maps and corresponding tips will be right at your fingertips wherever you travel.
Tom and Stuart Green of Trailspotting have expertly written a number of trail guides for the USA and Hawaii.
There are about 200,000 brown bears in the world. The largest populations are in Russia with 120,000, the United States with 32,500, and Canada with 21,750. …
… Although many people hold on to the belief that some brown bears may be present in Mexico and the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, both are almost certainly extinct. …
The brown bear of Europe is closely related to the Grizzly. And looks like a Griz.
… In Europe, there are 14,000 brown bears in ten fragmented populations, from Spain in the west, to Russia in the east, and from Scandinavia in the north to Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia (with about 800–900 animals), and Greece (with about 200 animals) in the south. They are extinct in the British Isles, extremely threatened in France and Spain, and in trouble over most of Central Europe.
The Carpathian brown bear population is the largest in Europe outside Russia, estimated at 4,500 to 5,000 bears.
Scandinavia is home to a large bear population, with an estimated 2,500 (range 2,350–2,900) in Sweden, 840 in Finland, and 70 in Norway. Another large and relatively stable population of brown bears in Europe, consisting of 2,500–3,000 individuals, is the Dinaric-Pindos (Balkans) population, with contiguous distribution in North-East Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, and Greece. …
In the Picos de Europa mountains in Spain, I’d swear “digs” I saw along the trail were made by bear. But I saw no other bear sign. The few animals in that range are very closely monitored.
One of the best day hikes out of my home town, Calgary, is Banded Peak. But it’s a big day:
Something like 37 km return, a 1416m (4645ft) height gain.
Perhaps 27km on the bike and a 10km return hike/scree scramble to the 2,934m (9,626ft) summit.
Banded Peak from near the trailhead
Here’s the final deceptively easy looking approach.
summit
Banded Peak, together with Mount Glasgow, Mount Cornwall, and Outlaw Peak, forms a small range which lies between the Little Elbow River to the north and the Elbow River to the south. …
It’s become a tradition with the families of some of my hiking buddies to take their sons on this adventure as something of a rite of passage to manhood.
On Sept. 19th, 2009 we took three 13-yr-olds. They had to get to the top … or die trying.
Rob Glaser, our leader, was far from certain that a group this big could finish. And finish in time before night fall.
Here we are on the summit. Everyone made it. Somehow.
It was extremely windy on top. I’d estimate 80km/hr (50MPH).
Other than that, the weather was great for this time of the year. We were lucky.
Our best fun was some of the scree runs on descent.
Happily, we all made it back to the trailhead by 5:30PM.
BERLIN (Reuters Life!) – German naturists will soon have their own 18-km (11-mile) long trail for hiking in the nude and some enthusiasts have been trying it out before the official opening next May.
besthike.com 