West Wind Pass with New Friends

A friend of mine was getting married in town this weekend, and I offered to guide a hike for interested visitors. At 11:50 PM on Friday night, I got a note from one of the guests saying she had arranged for a group to go hiking at 9 AM on Saturday morning. She asked if I would lead it. At 12:20 AM, I said sure. I'm a big believer in advance planning, as you can see.


Turns out I had 10 folks, mostly from the Montreal and Ottawa areas, few of whom had spent much time in the my mountains. The morning did not dawn well. At 8 AM, it was a balmy 5° in the valley and there was a localized storm bringing rain to Canmore and snow up in the mountains. On the bright side, it wasn't a big storm, and because the sunrise was good, we were treated to a rare rainbow in the west.

Dark clouds brew but the sun is shining

We headed to West Wind Pass, which is a wonderful intro hike for folks new to my mountains. Many of these folks were runners, as it turns out, and most really liked the workout.

The crew emerges from the forest

Eight of the 10 happened to be lawyers.

8 lawyers on the edge of a cliff? Tempting...

It also turned out that they cleaned up VERY well. Here's a small selection of them at the wedding reception the same evening. 

Wow.

It's a darn good job they didn't look like this on the trail, for I would have just fallen off the cliffs in awe.


They seemed to like my hike selection, and more importantly the snacks we brought for them at the top, and the chocolate we had for them at the end of the hike. I was glad to be able to show them all my great back yard.