play Up One Level not an important image Scrambling Photos from Hawk MountainMay 16, 2010


For Sunday we decided to head up Hawk Mountain. It seemed to have the least snow coverage of most of the mountains in the area. For directions to Hawk Mountain I suggest reading "Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies" by Alan Kane. The scramble has a short difficult section not far up the mountain. The rest of the scrambling is moderate or easy. We managed to gather a few ticks on this trip. The tick count for both our days in the mountains was at least 10, 2 of which were mine. The snow further up Hawk was pleasant and we were able to stick to small snow slopes without much exposure. Only one slope was steep enough to take out our ice axes. I didn't use my ice axe as my ski poles were providing me with plenty of support. The reason I was using ski poles was because our original plan for the weekend was to do some ski ascents at the Columbia Icefield. But the snow never froze overnight so we changed plans to be on the safe side. The weather on this day was cloudy and constantly threatened to rain on us. But fortunately it never did

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Looking South up the Athabasca Valley.
Looking South up the ...
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The Palisades.
The Palisades.
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Hiking up Hawk Mountain in the tick zone. Chetamon Mountain behind.
Hiking up Hawk Mountain in ...
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Rob climbing the crux section of the ascent.
Rob climbing the crux section ...
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Rob climbing the crux section of the ascent.
Rob climbing the crux section ...
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Rob climbing the crux section of the ascent.
Rob climbing the crux section ...
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Hiking up the ridge.
Hiking up the ridge.
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Hiking up the ridge.
Hiking up the ridge.
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David on the ridge with the Athabasca Valley below.
David on the ridge with the ...
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Looking up to one of the many false summits of Hawk Mountain.
Looking up to one of the many ...
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Emir Mountain to the South East.
Emir Mountain to the South ...
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Another false summit of Hawk Mountain.
Another false summit of Hawk ...
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Rob hiking up the snow.
Rob hiking up the snow.
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Scrambling up the ridge.
Scrambling up the ridge.
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Hiking up the snow.
Hiking up the snow.
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Scrambling up the ridge.
Scrambling up the ridge.
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Hiking up the snow.
Hiking up the snow.
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Hiking up the snow.
Hiking up the snow.
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Yet another false summit.
Yet another false summit.
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Hiking up the snow.
Hiking up the snow.
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Finally, the true summit.
Finally, the true summit.
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Rob on the summit.
Rob on the summit.
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Hawk Mountain summit panorama.
Hawk Mountain summit panorama.
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Me on the summit with Mount Colin behind.
Me on the summit with Mount ...
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Whitecap Mountain to the North. I will be leading an ascent up this peak on June 26.
Whitecap Mountain to the ...
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Hiking back down in a hurry. The weather looked to be moving in from the South.
Hiking back down in a hurry. ...
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Hiking down the fun snow.
Hiking down the fun snow.
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Hiking down the fun snow.
Hiking down the fun snow.
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Hiking down the fun snow.
Hiking down the fun snow.
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Mount Cumnock on the left and Roche de Smet on the right.
Mount Cumnock on the left and ...
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Gargoyle Mountain on the right. Esplanade Mountain is the low peak in front on the left.
Gargoyle Mountain on the ...
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Pyramid Mountain looking very snowy.
Pyramid Mountain looking very ...
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Getting briefly off route on our descent.
Getting briefly off route on ...

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