Yamnuska Hiking Adventure...How an Easy Trail Can Become Difficult

It was our first hike after doing the West Coast Trail and we decided to go out and run up Yamnuska with Kevan and Leah. We left Calgary at about 1pm, arrived at Yamnuska, and were hiking by about 2:30pm. For those of you who have never climbed this particular mountain, it starts out with a pretty good up-hill push until you get to the "base" of where people do a lot of rock climbing. From there you're above the treeline and it's all mountain hiking.

Our first stop for photographs was at this point where there's a nice outcropping of rock that has a beautiful background of mountain valley and behind it, the open prairie. Karyn's had her picture taken on this rock before but we got a "group" shot here as well, courtesy of Kevan Wilkie Photography.While we were taking pictures we found a couple of habituated "chippies" as Karyn likes to call them. They were very friendly so they came up nice and close. Upon further examination we found out that one was a tripod, not a quadropod (is that a word???). If any of you know Karyn, she loves to take pictures of small rodents so she snapped about 100 of Tripod for everyone to see.We deviated a little from the trail once we got above the treeline to hike on the side of the mountain for some spectacular scenery and photo opportunities. Leah, as per norm, was WAY ahead of us (the woman is a machine!) and blazing a trail for the rest of us though the rocks.If you look closely in the picture below you can see the rock that Karyn had her feet dangling off...Good thing she's not scared of heights!!!On Yamnuska there is one point I like to call the crux move. It involves a chain and some free climbing (if you want). I knew approximately where this was, but apparently not it's exact location as we got to a spot where it was impassible. There was a group just across the way climbing up what looked like a little chimney and they were yelling at us "use the chain!" I was thinking "Thanks captain obvious! I've done this mountain...TWICE!" I had always remembered the chain being a little lower so I figured it was just a little below the place we were so we climbed down about 50 feet (back-tracking of course!) and I ended up getting onto a ledge and did some scouting...It ended in a 50 foot drop-off and no chain. Not the right spot. So, we went a little further back looking for the trail with little to no success. I ended up REALLY backtracking, dropped about 100 feet in elevation, found the trail, and we hiked back up to the spot we were at originally. Lo and behold, there was the chain about 10 feet above where we were standing! Urg!!!We summited the mountain and took a couple shots. Yamnuska was Karyn's first summit but we didn't get a picture that time so we made up for it this time!Now, what's best about Yamnuska is the scree. There are few mountains where you will find such wonderful scree skiing as here you get to drop well over a thousand vertical feet basically running straight down, bouncing this way and that (for those of you who don't know scree, think lots and lots of little tiny rocks on the side of a mountain that you would sink into about 3-4 inches when you step on it. Now think of that on a slope and what would happen!).

We went down a little far on the first section of scree and ended up doing a little trail-blazing (across rock...ooh, adventureous!) to get back to the main trail. The sky was a magnificent blue and made the contrast against the mountain something that was truely photo-worthy.The hike ended with another good scree slope and some very sore knees! We went back to Airdrie for some dinner at Kevan and Leah's, some beer, and some good times!

Until our next adventure!