Home»All Photographs»2021 Hikes»Outlaw Peak & Mt. Cornwall 06-26-21

Clayton and I went for a larger outing today (46 km with 2000 m elevation gain), to ascend both Outlaw Peak and Mt. Cornwall. These two peaks are part of a four-mountain massif that forms a very recognizable sight from the city of Calgary. Having done the first and fourth peaks (Banded Peak and Mt. Glasgow) before, all that was left was the middle two. Since they share the same long mountain bike approach and it was a long June day with a bomber forecast, it made sense to string them together into one trip.
We started off from the trailhead at 6:20 am, and enjoyed the early light and cool conditions for the 2.5 hour ride to Outlaw Creek. Here, we stashed our bikes and changed into hiking gear.
We made good progress to an upper alpine bowl where a verdant carpet of greenery was too good to pass up as a first break spot. We drank lots of water and stashed some Gatorade in the creek for our return. After treating some extra water for the high traverse, we continued on.
The east slopes of Outlaw Peak were the crux of the day, with steep, loose scree proving to be a challenge. At the summit of Outlaw, I was surprised to see the amount of elevation loss to the Outlaw-Cornwall traverse. We were almost seven hours to this point, and our turnaround point, Mt. Cornwall, still seemed quite distant. I also erroneously didn't factor in that we would have to re-ascend Outlaw on our egress. Oops. Looked like a long day just got two hours longer.
On the plus side, the traverse was on stable rock and the ascent of Mt. Cornwall was a cakewalk compared to Outlaw. A brief second lunch and we were on our way back with half of the day's distance under our belt.
Re-ascending Outlaw Peak was made easier by a in-depth discussion of the virtues of Italian flour and the Mediterranean diet. The challenging loose scree that we faced earlier on the east face of Outlaw was a blast to descend - just dig your heels into the soft scree and go!
After a third lunch and cold Gatorade break back in the upper bowl, we started our descent to the bikes.
This is where we felt the real heat of the day. Thus far we were at high elevation and it was in the 20's, but now we were hiking down into a huge gravel bowl where temps soared into the 30's. It was nice to re-mount our bikes and blast out the 15 km trail back to our vehicles, some 13 hours after starting out - what a great day!