June 29, 2019, Rimwall (sort of) and West Wind Pass
Distance: approximately 6 km
Elevation gain: approximately 650 m
On Saturday, June 29, Fred and I headed into Kananaskis for a hike. Our plan was to climb up into West Wind Pass and then continue on to the summit of Windtower. Instead of driving highway 40 and the Smith Dorien, we opted to access the Smith Dorien via Canmore because we had a later start than we had planned. Of course, a drive into the mountains wouldn’t be complete without stopping and taking some pictures 😁
By the time we reached the trailhead, there were a few cars already parked. That said, there were SO MANY more cars there when we got back to the car at the end of the day – in fact a crazy number of cars, ultimately explaining the extremely busy trail as we were coming down.
For the past couple of years, Fred and I have been trying to branch out and do hikes or easier scrambles that we have not done before. We had never climbed, (and still have not climbed 😂) Windtower.
The trail is hiker friendly – with signs and a wide, and well-worn path. However, quite quickly, there are multiple trails and unfortunately, or more likely fortunately, we veered left without realizing we were now on the Rimwall trail 😮. As we climbed, I kept saying to Fred I thought we took a wrong turn because I could see Windtower and we were heading in the opposite direction. Just below the scramble to the top of Rimwall we started scrambling down to West Wind Pass. Bit of a crazy downclimb but lots of fun and interestingly, we had not seen another person all day. By the time we made it down to the pass, we ran into a ton of hikers, all with big smiles and lots of gratitude to be out in the mountains this beautiful day.
The wind was howling and given our desire to be back for Nic’s lacrosse game, we opted to leave Windtower for another day. We felt a tad stupid when coming down the right trail up to the pass as we clearly had taken a path far less travelled 😂. But it was a wonderful adventure, with lots of alone time with Fred and gorgeous views from just under the summit of Rimwall.
