Created 25-Jul-10
Modified 25-Jul-10
July 24, 2010 | Mt Strachan (via Carnarvon Lake) | 2,690m | 27.6km (13 of that bike) | 1,120m gain (not including rolling… GPS was acting up)
My first “Nugara” scramble, Trailhead is Cat Creek on Hwy 40.
A rare day that both boys wanted to accompany me on a scramble. The last time all three of us hiked together was the Waterton backpack last year. Also rare in that it was a cloudless day. Given all the rain lately this is indeed an event.
This was a full body workout with biking, a river ford, more biking, pushing of the bike, hiking, scale the headwall using chains, and finally scrambling to the summit. I am no biker so that was the challenge for me especially given the mud and dangerous cobbles on parts of the trail. The bike descent was right up Eric’s alley, not so much mine… white knuckling it most of the way with that “eight hours on a jackhammer” feeling in my arms at the end.
We were accompanied on part of the trip by Jon, an accomplished Calgary scrambler, whom we met part way along the trail. He has done about four fifths of the Kane scrambles so he was great to banter with and gave me a few new ideas for some future trips.
This was a long approach, definitely worth the bike torture.
© Clayton Ditzler