Little Copper

July 26, 2026

After a great sleep Tana cooked up some delicious crepes in the morning. Since the weather was grand, we decided on a hike to the summit of Little Copper, a sub peak of Copper Mountain, but still an 800m climb above the lodge. The hike climbed steeply through the woods up to Gibbon Pass where we found some lovely alpine meadows to explore. From here it was a 200m slog up a pile of broken slate, but with great views of the surrounding mountains and down to Shadow Lake.

The rustic back-country lodge

Happy friends on a hike

Climbing the broken slate pile

Summit of Little Copper

Looking back at Shadow Lake

We sat down to lunch on the summit, but did not stay long as it was windy and somewhat chilly at 2600m. Tana took us down another route which was very scenic to the high point of the pass, where we hiked more of the meadows before re-joining the trail that we had ascended on. A long knee crushing descent down the steep trail had us back to the lodge in the early afternoon, where we enjoyed a coffee break on the porch.

Decending amongst flowers and faires

Gibbon Pass summit

Meadows of Gibbon Pass

Said goodbye to Tana, packed up our gear, and hiked back to the bikes. Descending the trail on wheels was a hoot and took very little time at all to traverse the ten kilometers, even with a couple of rough sections being walked. Forgot to sing to the bears as I was too busy white knuckling the handlebars as the bike bounced down the rough trail. Fortunately there were no wildlife encounters! Back at the car in only ninety minutes after leaving the lodge.

Still walking on the ride back

Drove back to Canmore and stopped at the grocery for a few more supplies. We ran into pretty much everyone from the ACC camp in the grocery store, which made the shopping rather long due to the chit-chat, but finally got the chores done and headed up the ACC headquarters where the twelve of us are lodged in the Bell Cabin for the week.

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