CR2014: West Wind Pass and Windtower

July 30th started with a cold breakfast buffet, then a hot breakfast buffet, and then a lunch fixings buffet at Mount Engadine Lodge. It wasn't an early start when Joan and I set out to hike West Wind Pass and on to the Windtower. Or at least as far as we could go, given our launch time. We agreed on an approximate turn-around deadline of 1:30.

Many of the guidebooks refer to a parking lot on the west side of the road. It doesn't exist any more after the floods of June 2013, so we parked off the east berm of the road. The trail to West Wind Pass begins at the level of a creek, which is now filled with rubble.

The route fluctuates between flat and steeply uphill, with the creek further and further below you on the right. The trail splits into braids from time to time, but we made it up to the pass without getting lost. Here's the view to the east from West Wind Pass.

At least two other groups preceded us to West Wind. One was from Yakima, Washington.

To the right looms the Windtower. Its geometry is similar to that of the nearby Ha Ling: a sheer face to the east and north, but a slope to the west.

The route to the top of Windtower takes you south, gently rising, with occasional rock ledges to climb over. Then it takes a sharp left turn and climbs steeply through scree to a saddle, after which is the final bump of the Windtower. Let's look at an image again; click to enlarge. On the far slope there are at least half a dozen trails heading south, but they gradually combine. It can be confusing, even with a guidebook in hand, but if you keep heading south and, if presented with a choice, uphill, you'll arrive at the clearly defined sharp left.

This photo looks back to the pass at an early stage of our Windtower effort.

The trail became more difficult when it headed steeply huff-and-puff uphill to the saddle. It's full of loose scree, and sometimes I spent a moment pondering which route for the next fifty yards offered the best footing. This photo was taken from our lunch stop, where the trail has a green patch and temporarily is less vertical.

This was our view of the onward trail. You can make out that there is a saddle to be reached before the final push to the top.

Joan and I reached the saddle, and looked at our watches. We wouldn't summit Windtower, not this time. Here is the view to the east.

This was our view towards the top.

And here's the stunning view to the west, including the Windtower on the right.

The clock said it was turnaround time, and I didn't feel like arguing, even though the peak was issuing its siren song. The scree-filled path turned out to be easier footing going down than up; in places it was like walking on crusty snow. On the final approach to West Wind Pass we bushwhacked from one path to a better one, but being lost was out of the question with the pass visible in front of us.

Barreling down from the pass I took a wrong braid and after a while Joan halted my headlong rush. We backtracked a short distance (uphill) and then crossed over to the correct path, arriving at our rental car in decent time but tired and hot. To make it to the top of Windtower on some future hike, we would need to make arrangements at Mount Engadine Lodge for an earlier start. And I'd pack a couple of extra energy bars.

As we drove back to Engadine a convoy of three TransAlta utility trucks passed us in the other direction. They kicked up a stone that smacked our windshield at the level of my forehead, leaving concentric rings of fractured glass between two and three inches across. Thank God for safety glass! This was annoying, as well as scary, but we had dealt once before with windshield replacement in a Canadian rental car, so it wasn't intimidating.

Back at Engadine, in the evening light, the mountains were spectacular.

The other guests were admiring them as well.

Later on, it was moose time at the mud wallow, as it is almost every day.

The sun disappeared behind Tent Ridge, but continued to shine on the clouds.

Here is a two-moose photo, one on extreme left and one on the right.

Tomorrow would be an eventful transit day with another new hike.