Crowsnest Mountain

Crowsnest Mountain is just asking to be climbed. It stands all alone, except for the Seven Sisters stretching out to the north. It is a pretty popular mountain to climb, and not too hard, but it is definitely a scramble. There is one main route up the north west side of the mountain although the trail is easy to loose at some points on the scree. As soon as you get out of the trees, there are amazing views to the north and west, but there is very little water from the treeline on, so make sure to bring lots of water.There were two scary parts to this hike. After the first scree slope, we had to go up through a chimney which looked pretty solid, but all the rocks were loose and ready to slide down.This was kind of scary to climb, but even worse to climb behind someone else''s falling rocks. After we got up this chimney we took a break on a little promontory, and some friendly but skittish mountain goats came to investigate us. Just a little bit farther was the major chimney we had to go up, but someone had attached a chain to the worst part, and at least the rock was pretty solid here. The rest of the climb was uneventful, and the top was a pretty good reward. Going back down, we lost the trail just above where we had taken a break coming up. We didn't want to go down the same chimney of loose rock anyway, so we looked for another way down, and it was actually pretty hard to find. The scree where we ended up going down was unstable, and I was pretty worried (we caused a few minor avalanches), but once we got past the chimneys it was just a fun long scree surf (taking huge steps and sliding a few feet down with every step - a bit like a cross between skiing and walking) the rest of the way down. One more tip - make sure you wear boots for climbing scree slopes.