I and The Hope finally agreed on our hike after a long discussion a few days ago in a coffee shop. The Hope accepted to go to Pincher Creek area and hike up Table Mountain simply because it was considered a moderate hike. I believe now after we finished it, except for a short part, it is an easy one. Perhaps that's why they consider it moderate! He was supposed to pick me up at 07:00 as he never agrees to getting up early and I had accepted just get the free ride but he was half an hour late. Strike one! We headed south on Highway # 2 and then Highway # 3 and then in Pincher Creek we stopped for a coffee which got turned to have a Pancake as well, in the local A&W! We had already stopped once for gasoline. So Strike 3! Eat your damn breakfast enough and fill up the fucking tank the night before so you don't have to waste time on the road!
We finally reached the trail-head near Beaver Mine Lake at around 11:00 and started the hike at 11:20, I guess it was! The fact is from where he picked me up in downtown to the trail-head was some 02:30 hours which we made it in 03:00 because of the time he wasted.
It was an easy start and then got steep and we had to go up a scree after that. The Hope was confused although he had brought his bicycle's GPS! It seems these little machines are not as helpful as they're supposed to be. We got ourselves on the ridge where was in the middle of the mountain between the west summit and the east one. He thought we should have gone to the east side but I remembered from what I had seen that we needed to go to the east side. That was what we did! There it was an easy walk to the summit of not very tall mountain. I guess our hike to the top took some 02:25 hours, considering some waste for photography, short stops for catching our breaths and route finding of course. We had a short rest on the top and he, again, ate! This time a Roast Beef Sandwich he had bought from Co-Op! I just had a bottle of water.
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| Four Deer were sheltering from burning sun beside this storage on this vast canola field and as soon as they saw me approaching, started jumping and running! |
The hike down was a little challenging at the beginning but soon we found the trail and made it back to the parking spot easily. I guess we were there around 16:30, meaning we spent the total time of 5 hours for the hike.
In a nutshell I think it is a little less than moderate hike and not worth driving 02:30 hours to trail-head unless you want to have an easy hike but the view from the top is nice. You even can see Crowsnest Mountain from there, easily.
On the way back he wanted to take a few photos of the wind turbines and Canola field. He selected an access road and we drove close to the fields where we surprisingly a few Deer on the field! I and The Chef saw a few Deer, particularly 1 or 2 with big antlers on our way to Rocky Mountain House on Highway # 22 but missed the photography opportunity. This time I didn't want to miss because in fact it had been very long time since I had this opportunity to see them so closely but my Telephoto Lens was in his trunk and although he drove us to the road, he didn't seem to be so accompanying on this matter! Nevertheless I took a few shots from the beautiful mammals with my regular lens that you see one of them here.
(Photo; Table Mountain's west summit with the trail which connects two summits together. On the bottom Beaver Mine Lake and its access road can be seen)
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