Cascade Mountain

Tue 6th Sept. Well after a rest day and a well needed laundry day yesterday it was back to the hills today - actually mountain. Cascade Mountain is the prominent peak seen to the northeast from the main street of Banff. The start of the trailhead is just beyond the Mt Norquay ski area, and there is a free shuttle from downtown up to there, so we took that instead of driving the van up. We didn't get up there until 11 am and avg round-trip time to the summit is 9 hrs, and the last shuttle for the night was 7.45 pm - so we couldn't muck around, luckily there wasn't any animals around to spend time photographing. The first part of the trail is 7.7 km with elevation gain of 640m to the Cascade Amphitheater, We then climb to the right of that up and over the "first peak", skirting around the "false summit" and then up the loose scree to the main summit @ 2998 m. After a little bit of time up there sheltering out of the wind, and talking to a local guy, it was time to head down. Again views were marred by the haze, apparently due to forest fires - some summers you can't even see the mountains at all due to fires. About 5.15 pm we had 4 to 5 kms to go, so I told Doug it would be tight but we could possibly make the 6 pm shuttle. So the pace increased and Doug was on a mission. We got to the shuttle stop with about 2 mins to spare - I'm glad after all that hurrying we didn't have to sit around til the next shuttle at 7 pm. Always a good sense of achievement when you summit a mountain. Hike stats: 19.76 km, active time 6 hr 07, elevation gain 1644 m. Steps D 36635 / V 38222.Read more