Hole in 2

The Goat's Eye is on the LHS (south) just before you arrive to the parking lot at Sunshine.  Always wanted to scramble up there!

The old goat himself.

Ta da!

Climbing back down, facing the slope.

...and down....

Driving back on the trans canada from Lake Louise, just before the corner turning west before Sunshine, if you look up to Mt. Cory on your left, you will see the Hole in the wall.  (Photo is out of order as we did hole in the wall 2nd.)

No need for coffee to get you going in the morning. Nothing like an icy cold dip at the start of the scramble, sending yer nutz up to yer ears.

Many thanx to Doug for leading the way with his crampons, as I only had microspikes.

....Doug going down.

Ummm...I'm sure you forgot to add something to that enormous pack! A kitchen sink perhaps, an electric fan, a tuxedo?

Written by Doug Lutz "Hole in 2" - Eye Of The Goat on Eagle Mountain (Goat's Eye Mountain) and Hole In The Wall on Cory Mountain - Banff National Park I had not been in the mountain for almost a month due to winding down strenuous activities in preparation for the Red Deer marathon (Woody's), and then recovering from the same. The forecasted unsettled weather patterns did not help me in terms of inspiration to get back to the mountains, but I decided to throw caution to the wind and plan something anyway! I reached out on my personal FB profile as well as the Scrambling in the Canadian Rockies FB site, in addition to some targeted invites on Messenger. My intention was at least to bike the HWY 1A to get up the Hole in the Wall. I had a track that Marko Stavric has sent to me from his trip there in the fall of 2021 that I planned on using. Steve Tober answered the call - he and I had discussions in previous years about a route on Athabasca, and then a time when he was on Mount Carnarvon while I was on my Walcott - Mount Burgess - Mount Field trip, so was excited to finally meet up with him in person given his background! The section of the Bow Valley Parkway from Johnston Canyon to HWY 1 is closed to all travel from 8 PM to 8 AM, and additionally, restricted to bike and hiking only from 8 AM to 8 PM (until June 25 in 2024). This closure to biking/hiking traffic only is part of a 3-year pilot program. Hard to say if it will continue or not, but on this day, they needed to have multiple wardens stationed on both ends of the closed section to warn bikers of multiple bears along the road. One would have obvious concerns for altercation between human and animals (bear or sheep) - we saw a fairly large herd of sheep, but didn't see the black bears that were on the road farther down HWY 1A. We did see a grizzly on the Sunshine Road earlier in the morning. As we started working out logistics, Steve had a neat idea to also ascend to something that he referred to as the "Eye of the Goat". I had never heard of such a feature, but EYE was game!! He called it a "Hole in 2" if we would do both the Eye and the Hole! So... I started digging based on the information that he passed to me. Steve had sent me a photo from Matt Hobb's TR for Eagle Mountain that showed a photo of the Eye of the Goat from the side. Sonny Bou also talked about the eye in his trip report, and both Sonny Bou and Vern Dewit marked the location on a topo map for their trip reports. I was also able to find an excellent video of a ski descent from the summit all the way down to Healy Creek (Mikey Hall and Will Lambert). This, along with Google Earth satellite images allowed me to correct my imagined location of the location of the eye that I sourced from Sonny's and Vern's TRs. The location is a lot closer to the summit of the Eagle Mountain summit than their maps indicate (at least 500m closer). The significance of the discrepancy meant that the location of the Eye was also at a higher elevation than the topo maps showed. With this information gelling in my head, I was starting to get excited about the "Hole in 2". What was concerning to me though was that Steve has done bike touring in many countries, and I imagined that he would easily beat my biking speed (he did of course), but I had an envisioned route that had us parking at Sunshine, and biking back to Sunshine parking lot after our descent from the Hole in the Wall. Thankfully, Steve had a better idea (he knew about the parking lot at the junction of Sunshine Road and HWY 1). Of special note, and thinking of "Hole in 2", we did see a bald EAGLE at the end of our descent from the Hole in the Wall, and he/she made several calls out to us! Coincidence, or serendipity?... I hope that you enjoy the photos! Thanks Steve for accepting my invite for the adventure, and suggesting that we tack on the Eye of the Goat!