Attempt date: February 25, 2012 (unsuccessful)Participants: Jimmy Quigley, Patrick Latter

Weather conditions at base

Temperature

Minimum Temperature: -13.0 °C Mean Temperature: -7.6 °C Maximum Temperature -2.0 °C

Pressure and Dew Point

Mean Sea Level Pressure: 100.54 kPa Mean Dew Point: -9.9 °C

Wind Speed and Gusts

Mean Wind Speed: 18.33 kmh Maximum Sustained Wind Speed: 16.90 kmh Maximum Wind Gust: 46.30 kmh

Directions

From Canmore follow the directions in town towards the 'Nordic Center'. Continue on around the reservoir and dam until you reach the 'Goat Creek' trailhead parking lot. This is the same parking lot you would use for 'Ha Ling Peak'. Once parked, walk back up the road towards the town a few hundred meters and you will see some telephone poles on your left; begin your climb here.

Gear

Food
Water
Warm ski jacket
Warm fleece
Winter Hiking boots
Warm socks (or 2 layers of socks)
Goggles (extremely helpful once you break the tree line)
Poles
Toque
Neck/face warmer
Thermal underwear
Snow-pants or gaiters
2 layers of gloves
Hand warmers

Ascent

With the recent snowfall, the trail was not visible from the road, so we just started up from where we could best remember. We had done this particular hike a few times before so it wasn't long before we across the trail. Despite the cold temperatures, we had to start shedding layers as there was little wind in trees. Viability gradually worsened as we climbed until we broke through the tree line and visibility dropped to just 40 or 50 meters. With the decreased visibility came much higher winds and we decided to stop and cover our faces and eyes the best we could. Jimmy's eyes literally started to freeze shut; the wind was cold.

We did our best to follow the ridge up the right hand side, hoping to see the large rock formation that comes just before the summit.

At this point we were starting to lose motivation as visibility was so low. We were having trouble determining how much further it was to the top. We decided to stop in a somewhat sheltered area of the ridge and have some food and water.

After a bite to eat we packed up and made the decision that we would head back down after taking some pictures. We trekked up a maybe another 100 meters or so as we took pictures along the way.

Just then, the peak of the mountain finally came into view.

We were only about 75 meters from the summit, far closer then we thought. Despite realizing how close we were, we still made the difficult decision to head back down as it was unsafe with the current conditions to attempt the final ridge.