Bob Beck

A solo hike up the Joffre Creek trail, and route finding to Limestone Lakes in Height of the Rockies Provincial Park

Hike started out with a visit from Murphy/Stupidity. I took a picture of the bridge over joffre creek and the camera beeped - Memory Full! What! Oh crap, I left the XD card in the usb dongle. So I had to do this trip only with the internal memory of the camera, and crank down the shot resolution to be able to take more than about 3 pictures. AAAAAAAARGH!

I camped on the first night after a slog of a climb up the Joffre Creek trail in the meadows at the foot of Sylvan Pass. Got visited by Moose coming over Sylvan pass after dinner, then in the morning while cooking breakfast had a white mountain goat come over it.

The next day I climbed the ridge to the west of Sylvan Pass, zigzagged down the adjacent saddle into the wide funky karst vally that you go through southward to get to the pass that drops down to the lakes. I got to the lakes at about 1 PM, set up quite possibly the sweetest hammock hang in the history of the universe on one of the peninsulas between two big larch trees in the east lake, and then hiked all around the upper (westerly) lakes. I returned to the east lake and walked around a bunch of it in the evening before returning for dinner.

After a windy but comfortable night, caught an amazing sunrise over the kananaskis peaks to the east, packed up and was climbing back out by 7 AM. Got to the car at 5:30 PM. Took most of my pictures on the way out because I was saving my camera memory for the lakes.

Gear and Notes

		Joffre, from my campsite in Sylvan Pass.	At 9 PM a bull moose came over the pass down to me	Followed by a cow.

	Moose in Sylvan Pass by my camp	The Red nob	Limestone Lake from the pass

	Quite possibly the sweetest hammock hang in the history of the universe.	The middle lake, a Glacial tarn.	The next lake, whose outlet dissapears underground

		More to the west, there are more lakes.	and more lakes..	Turtle!

				I sat up here and zen'ed out for a while..

			The Wall behind the eastern lake, and my hammock on the peninsula.

	Just before Sunrise, from my campsite, while eating breakfast.

				View of the way up/down the bench above the red rocks

				Funky karst everywhere!

	Gotta get to the top of the left peak	Sylvan pass is the bottom of this ridge	Joffre, from the high point of the hike	Leaving Sylvan pass.

	The Joffre Creek Trail.	Mount Northover	Porcupine Proof Xterra.

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