Windtower

July 20, 2022

Today we met up with some ACC friends from Ottawa and drove up to Spray Lakes. Judy, Sue, Ann, and Lorna joined us as we ascended up the well trod trail towards West Wind Pass. At some point we took a wrong turn though, and as we got higher I finally noticed that we were a bit too far west. Turns out we were on a path up towards Rimwall peak. We were pretty close to the pass (maybe only 400 meters away), so I first prodded the woods for a bushwhack route over. That got some complaints, so I turned around and we started back down the trail we came up on. Shortly we found a path going in the right direction which brought us out to some ledges just above the pass. We set about trying to find a way down, and with a couple false attempts where cliffs blocked the way, we finally continued upwards until a weakness was found. There was one tricky down climb move which rquired a bit of coaching, but everyone made it down and then we meandered over grassy meadows and rocky talus ramps until we finally arrived at the pass, our first objective complete.

The group strung out on the approach trail

Looking over at Windtower, with West Wind Pass to the East of us

Downclimbing to the pass

Checking out the view in West Wind Pass

A quick break was taken, and then we started up towards Windtower. A couple easy scrambles later, Ann, Sue, and Lorna stated that they had had enough, so we split into two groups here. They headed down after a lunch break, while Kat, Judy, and I continued onwards. We followed a traversing path for quite a while, until the terrain looked good to start climbing the mountain. At a distinct cairn we moved upwards towards the summit, zig-zagging as necessary among the boulders and steep talus. One messy area was a bit tricky, but we intersected a goat trail, which brought us up nicely to the ridge, where we intersected a very busy and well worn main trail. Perhaps we should have continued a little further on the traverse. Oh well, two off track adventures makes it par for the course while hiking with me!

Our shortcut route begins here

Looking over at Lougheed from Windtower ridge

From here it was simply a long slog up to the summit. We arrived just as most of the crowd was leaving, so we even had some relative solitude. The mountain lived up to its name though, as it was really windy while we hunkered down behind some stone walls to consume our lunch.

Last bit of slogging up the gravel pile

Summit

We stuck to the main trail for the descent, which went fairly quickly as a lot of the looser stuff was suitable for boot skiing. During the hike down from the pass, we tried to figure out where we went wrong in the morning and found quite a maze of unmarked trails with several people wandering around in here asking if they were on the right path. When we finally came to the place where I believe the wrong turn was made, I felt much better about the navigational mistake, since the proper trail was actually blocked by logs, with the Rimwall trail the most obvious way forward. The map is not much help here as it only shows a single trail up to the pass. We finally arrived back down mid afternoon after seven hours out on the mountain.

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