CODY SHIMIZU

A look into my life, a journal to look back on, a blog for others to see.

Date: Aug 12 2019
Type: Scramble
Difficulty; Mostly 3rd class, maybe one 4th class section
Distance: 8.3Km
Elevation: 1020m
Car to Car: ~4-6hrs
Where: Kananaskis, Highway 40
Gear: Scrambling Kit

It was day 2 of my solo scrambling weekend. Once again the weather was looking a bit finicky for the afternoon so I thought I would find something that wouldn’t be too long to complete. I’ve heard of Mt. Baldy before but considering it was rated an easy scramble by Alan Kane I wasn’t too interested. Looking into Mt. Baldy more I heard about the entire Baldy traverse consisting of 3 distinct peaks.

To start park at a small pull out (put this into Google maps. 51.006894, -115.072984) about 13 km from the highway 1 and highway 40 junction. From there you can either go east taking you up to the west ridge of Mt. Baldy, or go a bit more south following the river bed. As you make your up the river bed keep an eye out to your left and follow a faint trail up. If you keep going too far you’ll find yourself surrounded by tall rock faces with a bunch of rock climbing routes on them.

Once you gain the west ridge of Mt Baldy there’s a multitude of trails that take you up to the summit of Mt. Baldy. Close to the top there’s a bit of a block that you avoid having to go over top of by circumventing it along the bottom on the climbers right. It’s a fairly easy scramble to get to the true summit of Mt. Baldy. From there it’s a bit more of a hands on scramble picking your way down the other side. From the summit I carefully picked my way down a few steps before going down the north side of the summit block. A few careful moves and I was down between Mt. Baldy main and south peak. It was a very easy walk to get to Mt Baldy south peak. From the south peak it was a bit of a loose steep descent, nothing technical more tedious.

It was a fairly easy hike until the summit block of Mt. Baldy west. This final section was definitely the most hands on scrambling of the entire traverse. It was a lot of fun on solid rock making my way up. I didn’t notice any specific route or markings, pretty much a free for all for whichever way seems the easiest. From the summit of Mt Baldy west I back tracked a bit and made my way back down into the valley. Although there was a bit more of a defined trail closer to the south peak I took a bit of a short cut heading straight down.

A fairly quick scramble, that is fairly short. Considering lots of fun scrambling to be had especially going up the west peak. Definitely would recommend if you need a quick outing closer to Calgary.

Here are some other great trip reports/beta!
http://trailpeak.com/trail-Mount-Baldy-Traverse-near-Kananaskis-AB-11588
http://bobspirko.ca/Canmore/MtBaldy/MtBaldy.html
https://theminimule.com/baldy-mt