Storm Mountain Kananaskis / Highwood

Me on the summit Mt Storm. Mist Mountain distant in a smoke haze.

August 13th 2017

Storm Mountain trail head is 4 km south of Highwood Pass Meadows Day Use at the Lost Lemon Mine pull out sign.

The trail head is a 100m from the sign walking north( photo below ).Once in the trees the trail is easy to follow and comes on a grassy ridge. From there into a meadow where the trail disappears. Cross a rock wash and stay low to get back to the creek and walk on the grass into the cirque. The route up to the col is on your left .Better foot purchase can be found on the long narrow rock out crop ribs. Try linking them together. I came out at the top end of the col leaving a steep but worn trail to the false summit. Go around to the right of this summit,  Then see the route to the real summit. I could see that if there was snow on the next piece it would be dangerous, but for us, not bad at all. Drop down a tad and follow a fait trail under the narrow ridge. When it runs out pick a line to scramble up to the ridge which is now broader. The last bit up to the summit was fairly easy no exposure just steep. At the summit there is a small sub summit with a col between the two. In Kane’s book he went over this and descended down a gully. We went for it from the col. They all end up in the same large drainage. Elevation is lost fast but not easily. 

I have no pictures of the route out at the bottom due to the heavy rain shower we encountered very rare this hot dry smoky summer. On the grass we went left but then cut across the creek to the right and eventually came across a trail that went down to the road 700 m north of Lost lemon Mines.

 

Trail head to the left of the small creek

 

Gaining height from the trail head

 

The meadow before the Cirque

 

Route up center left

 

In the cirque route up on far left

 

Route dead center

 

Top of picture is the Col. Stay on ribs of rock as much as possible

 

Getting near the col and the rock ribs run out

 

The view from the col to the false summit

 

First view of the summit from the col

 

Looking back at the col to the false summit. The watershed on the right is the exit route.

 

Stay low below the ridge. Faint trail goes across. Then scramble left to wider ridge and it opens up to the summit. Second arrow is rough approx. of route

 

Faint trail shows route under narrow ridge

 

David scrambles up to the summit

 

R to L Kevin David Arnold Storm Mountain Kananskis

 

Sub summit that Kane climbed over to descend. We descended to the left at the low point of the small col

 

Heading off down the gully between the summit and the sub summit

 

It’s steep and every thing moves. We all stayed very close together.

 

Kevin checks out the gully over. It’s all shit

 

David comes over a rib into more loose sh—t

Distance return 8.0 km Time return 7:30 hrs ( inc 30 min lunch ) Elevation Accumulated gain 1147 m Elevation to Summit 1065 m Summit height 3099 m

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