Crowfoot North and Centre plus the Onion

Great to be in one of Doug's famous summit jump shots!  My feet are barely off the ground, not due to poor timing, but rather due to the fact that my legs had had enough by then!....and I still had to get back down.  25kms and nearly 2000 vertical metres in total that day. North Crowfoot is the brown peak on the LHS of the photo to the left of Dougs right foot. Centre peak is the big grey peak right behind Lito.

Heading to the centre pk of Crowfoot

Grovelling my way up a tricky section

Alpine start at Bow Lake.  North Peak.  We were on top only 2.5 hours later!

Wapta icefield in the background, the Onion on the left, iceberg lake to the right and below it, Bow falls.  The source of the Bow River that flows thru Calgary, some 200kms downstream.

Lito on a tricky bit.

Just out of the photo a mtn goat was having a siesta as well.

Mt. Saint Nicholas rises about the Wapta icefield.  I will be back for that one, now that I know I can skirt/avoid the glacier.

Doug and Lito descending the Onion.

Written by Doug Lutz

 I had worked up this plan as a "rest day" between my planned Fri adventure the previous week in David Thompson Country up Vision Quest Ridge - Epiphany Peak - Bright Star Peak, and then Dolomite NE1 Peak on Sun. When the Fri adventure turned into an overnight deal, the Sat plan around the well-travelled Bow Lake had to be postponed.

It turned out that I was only prepared to have the plan sitting on the shelf 1 week... I put out a general invite to the Scrambling in the Canadian Rockies group, and Steve Tober and Lito Ochotorena both answered the invite. I had been out on routes with both of them previously, so I knew that their ability was aligned with both the distance and elevation that the adventure would throw at us. I honestly was worried more about myself as I have recently been experiencing a shoulder as well as a leg issue. I was pretty sure that I'd be able to endure the pain that I was experiencing as the distance was only going to be about 25 km, and I estimated about 1800 - 1900 metres gain.

I enjoyed the route, enjoyed the view, and enjoyed the company!

I hope that you enjoy the photos. Thanks Steve and Lito for accepting my invite on this adventure!!

**DISCLAIMER**

Our route from "North Crowfoot Mountain" to "Center Crowfoot Mountain" is not the same as the route described by Andrew Nugara. Andrew's travels through less risky terrain. We did feel that it was below Class 5 rating, but there is definitely some route-finding required to find the lower risk lines. The descent line we took from "Center Crowfoot Mountain" to the Bow Hut Trail is not described in any guidebooks, nor are there any gpx tracks that I could find. As such, use this posted information with that realization in mind.