25. Mount Baldy

Elevation: 800 m
Distance: 5 km return

July 27, 2 months  after Ha Ling, we finally found opportunity to hike again. Mount Baldy is an 'easy' scramble, close to Calgary and has one area of exposure. We looked forward to a great day.

The weather was cool, great for climbing. The cloud ceiling was low, not great for views.



After an hour of steep climbing, we came to the scramble. Hands and feet up the rocks and then down a 3- metre drop onto that narrow ridge pictured here for a few metres, then more rock and boulder climbing. We are thankful for the experience but not sure how much of that type of scramble we want to do again.
Maybe I can cross it off my bucket list.

It was not scary as long as I watched where I was going and didn't imagine falling.

The rest on the rock sofa and chair were a fun break after the exposed part was finished.
We still had to scramble up to the peak but there was less exposure and we could follow a group ahead of us. Although we entered the cloud, visibility was adequate to find our way and it wasn't too cold when we stayed on the sheltered side of the mountain. The other groups on the top continued on to make a circle but we retraced our route except we took a detour to avoid the rocky exposed ridge. It was a great experience but we were happy to return safely.