Ha-Ling Peak -- Jun 24, 2006

Elevation Gain: 700 meters (2296 feet)

Climbed by: me, MickR.

This is a nice easy mountain to get your flabby muscles back into shape after a sedentary winter spent in front of the computer screen eating bon-bons.

Drive down the Spray Lakes road and park in the Goat Creek parking lot, at the bottom of the first (only?) big hill.

Cross the street, and walk up the ramp to the canal, and across it on the bridge. Look for a small hut on the far side, and look behind that to find the tailhead.

Walk up. Keep going... It takes a while to get out of the trees. Once you do, follow the gently-sloping traverse along the top of the treeline, then back along the ridge toward the summit. Sooner or later the tail sort of peters out and becomes a mess of gravel on slab with many possible routes to the top. Pick one, and plod upward to the summit cairn.

The route down is pretty well the same as the route up, only faster.

Mick at the summit, or at least no more than 2 meters from it. In the background is the son of the fellow we met at the top. I'm not entirely sure what the father did for a living, but his son worked in Canmore doing rafting trips.
Mick, just about at the summit! In the foreground is the father of the kid who does the rafting trips in Canmore. He's from somewhere in Ontario.
Mick and I at the summit. The camera strap got in the way...
Snapshot of Ha-Ling from nearby Miner's Peak, I think it's called. It's a 10 minute walk up Miner's Peak once you're at the bowl just to the north/east of Ha-Ling. If you were to attempt the Grassi Traverse, you'd head this way.
Looking from the top of Miner's Peak toward the 'gap' between Ha-Ling and Lawrence Grassi. I didn't get any closer, but would next time when I didn't have someone waiting for me below.
Some interesting rock that would need to be climbed over, through, or around in order to get up to Lawrence Grassi from Miner's Peak. A little too interesting for me!
A wider-angle shot of the same stuff. There's a lot of interesting rock there... Maybe someday someone will convince me to try the traverse...
Standing on Miner's Peak, this is the ridge that you'd follow to get to the gap between Ha-Ling and Lawrence Grassi.
Ha-Ling (foreground) from the first flat spot on EEOR, maybe 1/4 of the way up. You can see Lawrence Grassi behind and to the right of Ha-Ling.