High Ridges and Ice Caves

This weekend I travelled up the Elbow Valley twice in two days, for adventures on a high ridge and then to explore deep into an ice cave.

Sat. 15 October:  Jumpingpound Mountain

I had not been up the Elbow Valley since May, and now here I was travelling through this most popular of valleys twice in two days.  

On this first trip I had M’s friend R along with me, and we were heading to Jumpingpound Ridge.  You can make an ideal circuit by driving up the Elbow, then north onto the narrow gravel Powderface Trail.  At the high point in this road you can leave your bikes, before continuing down the road a few more kilometers to the trailhead.  After a climb onto the ridge, and a walk to the summit of Jumpingpound Mountain, you drop back down to the road and finish the circuit on your bikes, and then back to Calgary on the Trans-Canada Highway.  This is what we did today.

It was a cold morning, a few degrees below zero, and patchy cloud in the sky.  But the forecast was for endless sunshine over the next few days.  What a Fall this has been so far – so many beautiful hiking days.

The trail up to Jumpingpound Ridge was familiar to me.  This time two years ago I had been beaten back by sub-freezing temperatures and snow, but today it was an easy climb.  In fact, it felt as if our lively conversation literally propelled us to the ridge-top in record time!  About three-quarters of the way to the top we started to encounter snow patches, and then there were a few inches of crusty snow higher up, but this was no hindrance to our progress.

Once on the ridge it was an enjoyable stroll through patches of trees and across the open hill-top, with the grandest views west to the Front Ranges and east to Moose Mountain and across to the prairie and to Calgary.  Once again, I puzzled at why people would have taken to the trouble to knock down those large cairns which once marked this route.  There are apparently some people who go around deliberately knocking down cairns for some reason.  In my view, this is not in the spirit of hiking.  In Scotland, it is the custom to place a new stone on a cairn, almost as an offering to the mountain gods.

Anyway, the easily attained summit of Jumpingpound Mountain was soon reached and we stopped for a snack and to admire the views of the snowy peaks all around us.  I had not fully appreciated before that this summit is the highest point along the entire line from (and including) Cox Hill in the north, all the way to Powderface Ridge to the south.  The fire lookout building on the summit of Moose Mountain could be clearly seen, as well as the small ugly gas plant which sits in a western flank of the mountain.

We only met two people on the ridge, a woman walking northwards along the ridge, and a man arriving at the summit as we were leaving.  “It’s a fine day”, I said.  To which he replied, “Indeed!”.  And that was that!  On the lower section of the trail back down to the road there were more people starting up the trail, including a Japanese guy with his trail bike and a friend with a large camera.  We had noticed bike tire tracks through the snow along the summit, but it would have been a tricky ride, as there was also plenty of ice on the trail higher up.

Now for the fun part – or at least that should have been the case.  Unfortunately R’s back tire was punctured not far down the road, and despite applying two patches we could do nothing about the split around the valve.  So I raced down the road on my bike to the car, and returned to pick up R.  It was a minor setback, and as we drove north along the Sibbald Creek road to the Trans-Canada Highway, kicking up dust behind us, we declared our adventure to be a complete success.

Statistics
Jumping Pound Mountain
Sat. 15 October
Total Dist.	9.8 km (hike) +  6.2 km (bike) = 16.0 km
Height Gain	2,001 ft.
Max. Elev.	7,349 ft.
Time	4 hrs. 32 mins.

Other Stats.
Start hike:       9.58 am Arr. summit: 12.15 pm Dp. summit:  12.35 pm Road:              1.27 pm Ret. to car:      2.30 pm	Temp: Cold, below freezing rising to above (-3 to +8 C) Mix of cloud and sun.  Light breeze.

Sun. 16 October:  Canyon Creek Ice Cave

The next day, I was once more driving west up the Elbow Valley.  The light was so perfect in the early morning sun that there was an unusual three dimensional perspective of the green foothills and snowy Front Range peaks from the high point along Highway 22X.

This time I only travelled part way along the valley, turning off onto the Canyon Creek road beneath Moose Mountain.  My heart dropped as I arrived at the car park to find several vehicles and cyclists had arrived ahead of me, despite my early start, but miraculously they quickly disappeared back up the road.  This gas well service road runs up a canyon into the folds of Moose Mountain.  At this southern end of the mountain, the summit is guarded by high cliffs of unstable rock, and in amongst those cliffs above the steep scree slopes is a gigantic hole in the mountainside, leading to a large cave.

This so-called ice cave was for many decades a popular outing for Calgarians, and despite the road up the canyon now being closed to vehicles, it is still a magnet for day trippers.  The guidebook mentions that there are on average four mountain rescues performed every year on this trail.  Before visiting the area, I assumed this was due to unprepared tourists getting into trouble on the steep approach.  My view now is that this is a potentially dangerous trail even for experienced hikers, as it is steep and slippery, and especially tricky coming back down.  I could see how this alarming statistic could have been occurring.

As I biked up the canyon road on a good gravel surface, I caught the occasional nasty smell of rotten eggs, from the H2S gas which seeps out of cracks in the mountainsides.  Further up the valley was a sign warning people not to camp out overnight up there!  The dry creekbed parallels the road.  In Spring this is a crazy torrent, but then in the Fall the waters drop below ground and the creek dries up.  The road ends at a gas well, and from here a trail leads up through the trees towards the scree slopes and cliffs above. 

The first cave you see is a small hole high in the cliffs and not accessible for walkers.  The large ice cave is further along the cliffline, approached across steep slippery scree littered with fallen rocks.  There was no clear route, so I picked my way carefully across the slopes, angling up to the base of the cliffs, until around the corner I could see the colossal cave entrance towering above me.

It remained a steep access right up to and into the cave itself.  The floor of the cave then flattened out, although it was littered with rock debris.  Even with a flashlight, I could not see the back of the cave.  The ceiling was ten or fifteen feet high, and the width a little more than that.  The cave disappeared into the gloom, beyond the reach of daylight.  I clambered carefully into the darkness, with the use of my handy beam of light.  I went perhaps 100 yards or so into the mountainside until I stopped at a place where the ground rose up towards the arched ceiling.  Here I turned around. 

There was no evidence of ice formations in the cave, with the exception of two or three small stalactites of ice, just starting to form on a rock near the entrance, from a dripping roof above.  There was one wet patch on the cave floor and that was all.  But this was an impressive hole in the mountainside, and the views down to Canyon Creek several hundred feet below, were spectacular.

Having stopped just outside the cave on a convenient ledge for a snack, I decided to descend directly down the scree slope to the valley floor.  I had my MICROspikes with me, and I was very happy to have them.  For this was a very tricky descent, on loose shale, where one slip might easily have resulted in a broken leg.  With the help of my two hiking poles and the MICROspikes, I made it safely – and slowly – down to safer ground below.  The sound of voices echoed off the cliffs, and I could see a party of hikers climbing up to the cave entrance.  I had been lucky to have had this amazing place to myself on a sunny Sunday.

Back in the valley, it took me no time to return to the bike, and then to enjoy a speedy trip down the road to the car.  Along the way I passed several people walking or riding up the road.  At the car park, bedlam reigned.  It now being a warmer, sunny afternoon, the car park was flooded with families and cyclists, with more arriving every minute.  There would be no silence in that spectacular valley that afternoon.  I was glad escape to my car, turn up the heater, and to drive out of a valley now buzzing with the weekend crowd. 

There was every chance that today might end up contributing to the scary mountain rescue statistics – but at least I had avoided being one of them!

Statistics
Canyon Creek Ice Cave
Sun. 16 October
Total Dist.	1.6 km (hike) + 10.2 km (bike) = 11.8 km
Height Gain	900 ft.
Max. Elev.	5,600 ft.
Time	3 hrs. 4 mins.

Other Stats.
Start bike:       9.09 am Start hike:     10.02 am Arr. cave:      10.36 am Dp. cave:       11.03 am Arr. bike:       11.52 am Ret. to car:    12.13 pm	Temp: Cold, rises from -2 to +4 C In the shade at start, but a cloudless day, no wind.