Ha Ling (Attempt)

✕

No, dear reader, your eyes do not decieve you. I turned back on Ha Ling of all places.

Allow me to explain.

I've been keeping in touch with a friend of mine from an internship last year now in Edmonton. He lives in Calgary, and invited me to go out with a group of other friends to hike Ha Ling on the 31st of May.

This sounded fine, except that the Environment Canada forecast was rain, rain, and more rain, the temperature at the summit would be well below zero, and the town of Banff was already Banff monitoring Bow River...
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[Archive] [No Archive Link] on a flood watch. I warned the group of such and noted that the ascent could be treacherous or fully impassable; after some deliberation, we decided to "send it" anyways - life is short, and all that.

We met at the trailhead early Sunday morning and started up. I was in no particular rush; good conversation was had, the trail was in pretty great condition, and the rain was pretty light overall.

We encounter wet but otherwise excellent conditions near ground level.

We encounter wet but otherwise excellent conditions near ground level. ✕

It wasn't until we reached the main viewpoint that I started to have serious misgivings about the ascent. Everyone else on the trip were experienced hikers, true - but hiking is a very different game from scrambling in wildly variable conditions, and fresh snow on the ground at a mere 2100m did not bode well for the 2400m summit.

My misgivings soon proved correct, as the rain transitioned fully to snow and passage became increasingly treacherous. Normally grippy hiking slopes became wet, icy, and generally unpleasant and untrustworthy. As the trail deteriorated, so did our visibility - and as if that weren't enough, my mental avalanche alarm bells started ringing. The slope is safe according to all known reports and I can't find a single record of an avalanche death on Ha Ling, but nonetheless fresh, wet snow on a 30-degree slope with dark rock underneath did not inspire confidence.

Things take a turn to full-blown winter above 2200m. Things take a turn to full-blown winter above 2200m. ✕

Visibility suffers heavily, and the trail becomes more packed and icy with every new footstep. Visibility suffers heavily, and the trail becomes more packed and icy with every new footstep. ✕

I did my best to silence the incessant warning bells, noting that with only a few inches of snow even a loose wet slide couldn't do much to any of us with minimal terrain traps below, and pressed onwards with the rest of the group. My concern deepened when one member remarked that we shouldn't think about the descent until it was time for that - yikes. (Hikers not being able to descend what they've gone up is a frequent cause for rescue in the Rockies.) The trail eventually petered out and we reached the brief scramble section at an altitude of 2420m; at this point, with conditions continuing to worsen and the hardest section ahead, I made the call to turn us back.

A select few from the group definitely could have reached the summit, but others were already slipping occasionally and had no poles or spikes. This was, after all, a group comprised of hikers with exactly one person with experience on this kind of terrain - me. I clearly wasn't the only one with misgivings as several of the other group members promptly agreed, and after some debate to make sure everyone was on the same page, the few of us that had spikes took the opportunity to don them before we headed down.

Caution is required without microspikes to avoid a potentially lengthy slide downslope. Caution is required without microspikes to avoid a potentially lengthy slide downslope. ✕

The snow briefly eased up and offered a view towards Miner's Peak to the east. The snow briefly eased up and offered a view towards Miner's Peak to the east. ✕

The fact of the matter was that most of us were in pretty good spirits just to be getting the heck off that slippery pile of limestone, and nobody complained all that much about missing the summit. We paused at the viewpoint to doff our spikes and enjoy a few snacks before heading back to the parking lot.