Saddle Mountain

GPS recording available here: https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/activity-7137031347-4d289c1

Elevation Gain: 1,143m
Distance: 11.84km
Total Time: 4 hours 1 minute
Date: July 16th, 2021

Saddle Mountain is the smaller neighbor to Fairview Mountain and makes up part of the Saddle pass. It seems for most people the primary objective is Fairview Mountain, but Saddle Mountain only takes an additional ~150m of elevation gain to reach the summit, so why not. Simon and I had just finished coming down from the summit of Fairview Mountain, but he had pulled a leg muscle on the way back. As a result, he opted to wait at the junction while I ran up to grab the summit quickly. I figured it would take around 30 minutes to the junction and back, but I was actually able to complete it in 20 minutes round trip.

Looking up at the short slope to the summit
Almost to the false summit now
Looking at the true summit. Note there’s cairns on both highpoints for some reason…
Saddle Mountain has a surprisingly big cliff face on the Southern side. Shot from the true summit
Panorama from below the false summit. From left to right: Sheol, Haddo and Fairview
Here’s what the terrain looks like coming down. Very straight forward to descend

The route was rather simple with a well worn path through the lower forested section and then a simple scramble up over a sturdy talus field to gain the summit. On the way back I followed the path a bit more closely to speed up the descent and then rejoined with my brother shortly after. Then it’s a short plod through the forest to get back to Lake Louise.

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