Mount Sparrowhawk Camping and Night Hike
Location: Alberta, CanadaParticipants: Jimmy Quigley, Patrick Latter Time: 12 Hours Weather: 7°C - 20°C Elevation Gain: 1350m Max Elevation: 3120m Start Time: 8:30pm
Directions
Head out of Canmore on the Smith-Dorrien/Spray Lakes road. Continue on the unpaved Spray lakes road for about 27-28km until you see the Sparrowhawk Picnic area.
Gear
- Hiking Boots
- Food
- Water
- Shell
- Warm fleece
- Gaiters
- Tent
- Sleeping Bag
- Sleeping Pad
- Micro Stove
Camera Gear Used:
Previous Attempt
If your interested, we also did this mountain last October. With a near whiteout, the experience was very different. October Attempt.
Story
The trail began with a well defined path that made it's way upwards through the trees.
It's not long until we came to a fork in the trail and we stayed left and followed the directions etched into the tree.
With the sun already setting, we had to move quickly to ensure we had enough light to setup camp.
Once we made it to highest point that still had some reasonable level soft ground, we began setting up the the tent while we put a few beers on 'ice'.
We got the tent set up just as we lost the last bit of light down the valley.
Once the sun went down, we put some water on to boil for a dehydrated meal. MMMM Beef noodle something... (I honestly can't remember the name of the one we had.)
We woke up at 3am to ensure we had enough to time to make the final accent to the summit for a 6am sunrise. With the moon now out of sight, we had an amazing view of the stars!
Once we reached the col, I setup to take a few shots of the Milky Way. It just happened by chance to be perfectly positioned behind "Reed's Tower", which a smaller peak that you can alternatively climb.
We then turned around and headed up towards the summit block of Sparrowhawk. We reached the top with an hour to spare! With temperatures near freezing at the top, we did our best to stay warm for the coming sunrise.
Mountain Top Dance Off!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJWmgqTt3FA&feature=youtu.be
Despite the extremely remote location there was a weather station of sorts at the top!
... which also included it's own shovel.
We then headed back down towards the bottom. With some perfect snow slopes to make the trip a little easier.
