Burstall Pass Hike

February 2, 2019 In Outdoor Edventures

Where:

When:

Who:

Trailhead:

take the Spray Lakes (Smith Dorrien) road south from Canmore for about 45 km
the trailhead is on the right-hand side and is across from the Chester Lake parking lot

Degree of difficulty:

it depends how far you go as we only went about 9 km on this day due to the challenge of about 20 cm of fresh snow that was partially packed down for most of the journey by some backcountry skiers that were out ahead of us
the trail climbs gently out of the parking lot for a few km’s before it flattens out in the first valley as it meanders in the trees until you to reach a meadow
you need to pay attention to the markers as you cross the meadow at about an 11 o clock angle to an opening in the trees that leads to the upper meadow (assuming you are continuing beyond this point)
on this day we followed some tracks across the meadow that was to the right of the opening, but we stopped at that point as our turnaround for the day
it took us just under 3 hours round trip at a leisurely pace and with a fairly quick 10 minute stop for lunch

Interesting notes:

when we left Canmore, it was -13C, and when we arrived at the trailhead it was -2C which made for a very pleasant jaunt as we delayered a few times during the hike other than when we crossed the open meadow at which point we had to gear back up to thwart the wind blowing down the valley
when we got back to the vehicle, it was +1C, but the temperature rapidly dropped en route to Canmore where we exited the vehicle to a shocking -19C
it was an overcast day so we had no view of the surrounding peaks and we could barely make out Robertson Glacier at the end of the valley
normally under easier conditions, we would take the steep ascent out of the first valley up to at least the second valley and sometimes up another ascent to Burstall Pass
the distance we did is good for an easier outing as there is no major climbing involved

snowshoe