Castle Mountain LookoutI did this hike on July 5th, 200 with my Dad and his pal Lou. It wasn't the best day weather-wise, so we decided to do something a bit more modest and sheltered. Original plans were for Fairview, but the ceiling was 9 or 10 thousand feet, so we figured that the views wouldn't be all too great. Our ascent time was about 1 hour 15 minutes to the old lookout spot. It's about 8 km round trip to where we went.
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If you like peace and quiet, this probably isn't the best choice. This is the kind of trail with little ones everywhere waiving their dog leashes in the air. (I'm trying to rhyme.) It is a highway of a trail, actually an old quad path. The last time my Dad was here was in the 70's when the lookout was still operational, or at least he says. After a good 1-1.5 hours (for us), you'll find a rocky bench overlooking the heart of the Bow Valley, with all the highways and train tracks in it. Considering the kind of day, it wasn't the greatest view but still very nice. |
Since we still had all of that energy bundled up inside of us, we decided to continue exploring. Many people know of the Goat Plateau Hut, but we decided to search for it. We knew where it was, but since the books were left behind, nobody had any idea where the route up to the plateau was. As you can see, we had absolutely no idea where to go, but we all had fun running around on the rock testing our routefinding skills. I'm probably thankful that we didn't find it because we were unprotected. Needless to say, after an hour or so we headed back down to the lookout and the car through periodic spurts of rain. |
