Ha Ling - Jan 21 2012

Ha Ling
Canmore Alberta
December 21, 2012 

This is likely my last post about Ha Ling as you can only write so much about a trip that is esentially a difficult hike and I have covered both winter and summer ascents.

The nice thing about Ha Ling is that when many other peaks are out of season, socked in by weather or in just plain dangerous conditions, this peak is almost always summitable.  In other words, this is considered an all-year summit. Located directly behind Canmore to the west, this summit is a good half-day trip and one of the best places to test people's endurance and hiking skills. We decided to do Ha Ling after we checked out the weather forecast that morning and saw that we were in for snow and high winds.

Trips up Ha Ling (which is mainly a hiking trail) are hardly eventful usually the hardest part is finding your way though the throngs of people in the summer.  Winter however has a tendency to throw wrenches into what are otherwise uneventful ascents.

 

This trip would have just that.  The day started off mainly cloudy and as usual the trail through the trees was covered by about an inch or two of snow, something that is quite normal.  As the trail increased upwards the canopy opened up and the snow became deeper, but never more than knee deep.  As the trail exited the treeline the wind that we were being protected from came whipping up.  This wind had scoured the scree and left only a thin layer in the exposed areas. Off trail and near the trees the snow was at places windthrown to waist deep.
 

This trip was a typical windy winter ascent of Ha Ling with winds in excess of 60km/h, near white-out conditions, and windchill dropping the temperature to approximately -35C. This allowed me to try my new First Ascent Hooded Guide Down Jacket in the actual mountains. The only difficulty experienced on this trip was when walking into the wind, travel was slowed and our faces were often focused downwards to avoid the ice grains and cold ripping into our face. Thankfully we brought our goggles with us so we could protect our eyes.

After truding up theg frozen scree (best kind) and fighting the weather we arrived at the summit overlooking the mountain town of Canmore.  On the summit the view was minimal until a very brief break in the clouds opened some blue skies. This was very short lived however as the low clouds blew in from the Goat Range behind and quickly socked us back in again.  As the windbreak shelter on the summit (goes to show the reputation this mountain can have if hikers and climbers have built one) was covered in windthrown snow so our summit visit was brief. 

Overall, the entire roundtrip with a group of five was about five hours including a brief 10-15 minute summit break.

 

Walking up scree towads summit

Summit Shot

 



Looking east over Canmore from the summit of Ha Ling