Phil Schreiner was lucky to be allotted five of the 100 peaks for the Alberta Centennial Mountain Expedition. Dinah and I, in turn, were fortunate to have him invite us to do one of them -- peak 61 -- Mount Sarrail.

Phil along with his three teenage daughters and his nephew, Paul, would do it as a three-day trip while Dinah and I gave ourselves a day to summit the mountain. Originally Phil's daughters were to accompany us to the top but in the end, only Phil and Paul joined us. This was a good decision as Mount Sarrail is not exactly the "pleasant hike" that Alan Kane suggests.

We hiked along the lakeshore trail, a good path although it seemed to drag on forever. Before setting off I had set a waypoint for the turnoff and we used it to guide us to the unmarked crude trail leading to Aster Lake. This trail immediately led to a tiny meadow and minutes later we were on the south shore of Hidden Lake. The water level was low enough to hike along the shore although it was muddy in some spots.

From the lake, a short, steep trail leads out of the woods onto a scree slope. Soon after passing the upper waterfall, Mount Sarrail appears. We left the trail where it drops down to cross a gully and we angled toward the lower slopes of the mountain. After stumbling up the loose rock we managed to gain the ridge.

On the ridge, we noticed there were three people ahead of us. One of them was coming down and we intercepted him. It had taken him four and a half hours to summit starting from the car (it would take us six hours). We learned that the two guys ahead of us were Phil and his nephew Paul. We weren't able to catch up to them but they waited on the summit for us.

Once on top we went through the formalities of bagging Mount Sarrail as a Centennial Peak. It was exciting to play a part of Alberta's Centennial, even if I was doing only one peak to Phil's five! Phil handed out flags and pins and we signed the new register.

After striking a group pose at the summit cairn for the camera we headed back down. Phil and Paul turned left on to the trail to return to their Aster Lake campsite while Dinah and I turned right and hiked back to the parking lot. For them, it would be a twenty-minute hike but for us nearly three hours!

MOVIE (1:40)
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