Observation Peak (Attempt)
Route Map
Summit Elevation: 3174m
Elevation Gain: 680m
Round Trip Time: 3hrs 1min
Total Distance: 5.71km
Technical Rating: Lower moderate scramble
Difficulty Notes: Easy scrambling as far as I got, with a little routefinding required beyond that point.
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I took an extended break from scrambling after a mid-August
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Of course, sitting around gets boring fast - and it wasn’t all that long before I had a hankering to get out and see some views. In particular, I wanted views of the wilderness I’d just been to, and Observation looked like it’d provide just that - and was short enough that I might be able to bang it out in an evening after work!
I left work at my typical time of 1630 on Friday August 29 - and then proceeded to go home and have a light meal before heading out. Bah! It wasn’t until 1843hrs that I arrived at the base of Observation and started powering up the trail. I’d been holding back already on Siffleur Mountain, and knew my strength had risen since then - so I wanted to see exactly what I could do if I put my mind to it, not to mention I’d realized just how little daylight I had.
Forest quickly gave way to a well-worn dirt trail leading steadily upwards. I kept up a solid pace, nonetheless recognizing that it would be 2-3 hours to the summit and I couldn’t sprint all the way to the top. It wasn’t until I glanced down at my watch an hour later that I realized I’d set a blazing-fast ascent pace of 500m/hr, and had plenty of gas in the tank to spare!
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I may have had energy to spare, but the same was not true of daylight - and as it faded, the trail became less and less well-worn. I won’t pretend Observation is easy by hiking standards; it’s got a solid incline and could be accurately described as “relentless”. I suspect most people turn back as they realize just how far up it actually is, leading to the trail fading as you ascend.
Dusk arrived at 2000hrs, and while I’d made good progress and had reached 2720m, I reckoned I needed another 45 minutes to reach the summit. At this point I was thoroughly regretting not having left earlier, which would have given me more daylight to work with. It didn’t help that I couldn’t figure out where the heck the trail went, and would have had to start properly scrambling instead - not that said scrambling would have been much worse than the obnoxiously tractionless dirt trail.
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I debated continuing, but decided against it - the goal, after all, was summit views, and there wouldn’t be much of those if I summited in the dark. I wasn’t all that disappointed though; I’d still gotten out after almost two weeks of inactivity. I settled for a panorama from my current vantage point, then headed back down.
It was on descent that I realized just how nasty the trail is. Thanks to the high foot traffic, it has the typical zero-grip dry dirt texture that most popular trails in the Rockies do - but mix in a 40-degree incline and you’re not in for a great time. Descent was barely faster than ascent thanks to this - I’ll definitely be bringing some microspikes on return. Yes, spikes. In summer. It’s really that bad.
I’ve never been a huge fan of travelling solo in the alpine after dark, and I’ll admit the trail through the forest gave me a touch of the heebie-jeebies - but that was over quickly, and I arrived back at the car a mere three hours after starting out, at 2143hrs.
This segues nicely to a new years’ resolution I’ve made for 2026 - getting out into the alpine on time. We’ll see if it holds once scrambling season opens up properly - but to put it bluntly, I’m a terrible procrastinator and often end up in the alpine waaaaaay later in the day than I should be. This in turn leads to me turning tail when confronted with incoming afternoon thunderstorms, or in this case running out of daylight altogether!