Banded and Outlaw Peaks

View from Banded Peak

Banded and Outlaw Peaks
Kananaskis, Alberta
May 28, 2005
Distance: 41.0 km (25.5 mi)
Cumulative Elevation Gain: 1664 m (5459 ft)

Taking advantage of the fine weather, Dinah and I decided to bag two peaks. We did so even though Dinah wasn't feeling well; unknowingly she had become dehydrated when we climbed Mount Lady Macdonald the day before. We realized this while biking to the trailhead to Banded Peak when she suffered from fatigue, headache and sore muscles. We stopped frequently, so she could rest and drink water. Two hours after starting out, she felt a bit better, and we traded our cycling shoes for hiking boots. We slowly headed up the trail.

We had no trouble following the trail to the basin until it disappeared into solid rock. We climbed the east slope expecting to spot the trail from above but no such luck. Most of the valley was under snow, so we traversed a talus slope and then, after squeezing between slabs below and cliff bands above, we reached the Banded-Outlaw col.

Although Outlaw Peak filled our view while going up the basin, it wasn’t until we arrived on the col that we finally saw our first objective, Banded Peak.

Dinah still hadn’t fully recovered, and as we crunched up the loose shale, it was touch and go if she would make the summit. Eventually though, we found ourselves standing next to Banded's summit cairn looking at the bewildering contents of the register canister: toy cars, music CDs, a key chain, a slide rule and other sundry. A card read: “Congratulations! You have found Banded Peak Cache.”

The register held a September entry congratulating the first adventurers to arrive on the peak since the placement of the cache. However, we weren't the first to summit Bandit that year; another party beat us by five days.

Summiting Banded Peak infused Dinah with new energy, and now she wanted to bag Outlaw Peak. We dropped 265 m down to the col and headed up Outlaw. Like Banded, it too was little more than a pile of scree.

The loose rock here was worse than that on Banded Peak. It seemed to go on forever, but quicker than we expected, we were on the summit of Outlaw. At 2970 m, it was slightly than Banded's 2943 m top. After skimming the summit register and taking photos, we made our way down. We had no trouble finding scree runs for a fast descent to the col.

Soon we were navigating through the basin. Under the blazing sun, water from melting snow trickled, flowed, and roared. The sound of running water was all around us. The din gradually diminished as we hiked down the trail to retrieve our bikes.

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