Little Arethusa

Little Arethusa, July 17

The Highwood Pass area is one of our favorite Alberta Rockies places, in summer for views, bears, and flowers, in the fall for the many larch trees, and in November for early season skiing. Four of us hiked into Arethusa Cirque, just south of the highway summit, and then on to "Little Arethusa", a small peak with big views. The photo above, taken from Pocaterra Ridge, in the fall, shows the Arethusa Cirque area.

An easy walk on a boot beaten track, through sub-alpine forest and glades filled with glacier lilies, brought us into the cirque.

After a short creek crossing, where someone took an unplanned swim, we continued up to treeline in open forest, and flowery meadows. If there was a trail, we didn't find it, but it wasn't needed anyhow.

We took a break in the meadows at treeline on some cushy grass. It could have been easy to lounge away the rest of the afternoon here. The view is looking south to Storm Mtn.

The alpine flowers were in full bloom, these cute little ones are androsace.

Further up, on the rocky scree slopes below Little Arethusa, moss campion and alpine potentilla were abundant.

Moss Campion, living up to it's description as a "cushion plant".

Dani and Jo wending their way up scree to the ridge of our objective. An intermittent track was found here and there, but the way was obvious. Higher!

On the ridge, the going was easy, and the top was soon in sight.

The top at 2740m. Time for lunch, and to take in the views. It looks like standing room only for Phil, as the ladies have taken the best seats. A big bonus here was the surprising lack of wind. Mt. Rae is the peak at right.

A panorama from the top, looking from southeast to west.

Descending the route we had taken up

When the scree slopes were done with, we found ourselves on west facing slopes packed with forgetmenots, as well as alpine buttercups and androsace.

It was here that I heard Dani sing "the hills are alive..." Julie Andrews did not come bounding over the skyline, though.

More flower laden meadows, (fine ski slopes as well) too many species to mention, but the fleabanes were especially showy.

Fleabanes, up close. We then dropped down through the forest to the north of the cirque, following game trails and doing lots of hollering, as the Highwood Pass area is prime bear habitat. Sure enough, as we popped out on the highway a short distance away from the car, a large grizzly was spotted browsing in the avalanche slopes on the other side.A short video of a grizzly feeding can be seen here. This was one of the highlights of our day, and we watched it for a while, as we were a good safe distance away, too far to photograph well, unfortunately. Or not!
Onwards to the next weekend:
Pocaterra Ridge
Index to links:
Arethusa Cirque skiing
Forgetmenots closeup
Grizzly video