Home»All Photographs»2019 Hikes»Mt. Collembola 06-29-19

David, Clayton and Myself headed out to the mountains for an extravaganza in honour of Canada Day. We ascended both Mt. Allan and Mt. Collembola in a lenghty counter-clockwise loop.
The scenery didn't disappoint, although the weather was cooler and windier than I expected.
We started with a long forested approach with steep sections where Clayton astutely said "this is gonna hurt on the way out after a long day". It did.
Once in the upper meadow, we gained the ridge with sections of hiking and easy scrambling. The scenery on the high ridge was phenomenal for the next six hours. We arrived at the summit of Mt. Allan just moments before a large group of trail runners that were approaching from the opposite (south) side. One of them was woman named Susan who works at Wilson Mountain Sports in Lake Louise (where I buy a lot of my gear)- and whom I've ran into before on mountain summits. It's always humbling to fathom the distance that she can cover in a day...high five to you, Susan!
After a short break, we dropped a lot of elevation enroute to Mt. Collembola. Eventually, we came to a sheer drop of 30 m or so, and needed to pick our way down a series of small cliffbands...it's always good to have your helmet, just in case. We took another break at the summit of Mt. Collembola (I was getting really pooped by now).
Following the break, we quickly descended a steep scree slope to the Jubilee Tarns. The biggest, Queen's Tarn, had an attractive island in it. We took off our boots and waded out to the island for a unique perspective. The soft mud was like a spa treatment for our toes, except for free.
Once back on the 'mainland', some bushwacking followed, and then we trudged down the long return trail to the vehicle, some 12.25 hours after starting out. Whew!