Prairie Mountain Sunrise, Part 1

My friend Tim can always be counted on to organize good outings. A coffee, a lunch, a hike. He organized our excellent excursion to Pocaterra Ridge in September to see the larches.

One of Tim’s good ideas in the last few years is a sunrise hike to the summit of Prairie Mountain in Kananaskis. He’s been considerate enough to arrange the hike on the day with the latest sunrise. This year, that day was December 29. Before the hike, I didn’t independently verify Tim’s assertion on this point. More on that in Part 2 of this post. But I did enjoy the extra two minutes of sleep that I was told would be available by delaying our hike from the winter solstice by eight days. 

Dan and I joined the convoy that left Calgary at 6:20 to reach the trailhead by 7:10. A testament to the popularity of Tim’s idea is that our group was ten this year, up from five last year. Mind you, last year’s -20C temperature may have been a contributing factor. (I passed on that one.)

The hike was great. It was my first time on the new and improved Prairie Mountain trail. It’s now 8.4 km with 711 metres of elevation gain. The modifications evened out the trail’s steepest segments, added some Lawrence Grassi-like stone steps in a couple of places, and widened the trail. Even in the dark, lit by a headlamp, I liked the changes. I’m not a PM veteran or a mountain goat. I have done the hike maybe six times, in various weather conditions. And I’ve been in a couple of slippery situations on the old trail that left me wondering if we’d taken a wrong turn. It just never seemed safe to me. Now it does. 

We may have been a bit late getting started. The southeastern sky was already lit with beautiful shades of pink at the first viewpoint. We hustled onward, knowing that if we could get onto the summit ridge we would see the sun break the horizon. Our time for the ascent was about 75 minutes. 

We didn’t have long to wait once we reached the 2,210-metre summit. The light display was stunning. Sunbeams streamed around a lone cloud that was parked just above the horizon. 

I had my Ricoh GR III with me. (Yes, I know, I say this often, but I really love this camera!) We snapped a few group shots as the sun made its appearance.

To the northwest, Moose Mountain was glowing, with snowy highlights and a rosy sky above. 

We enjoyed the vistas and took more photos. As I reached for a snack, I realized that my fingers were freezing. It was deceptively cool, but thankfully the summit winds were moderate. That isn’t always the case on Prairie. We started down, trading our headlamps for sunglasses.

An enjoyable coffee and treat at the Bragg Creek Cafe & Baking Co. rounded out the morning. 

Happy New Year to all!