Mt. Sparrohawk/Reed's Tower

This was most likely my last hiking weekend for 2009 as the fall season is upon us meaning there's only a few weeks left before the snow begins to fly in the Rockies. And for the next few weeks work is going to take up nearly all my time as we are into booking season once again. However I'm pleased to say we ended the hiking season with a challenging hike that yielded impressive views. It was a great weekend which included hiking/scrambling to Reed's Tower and Mt Sparrowhawk along the Spray Lakes Reservoir in Kanaskis, as well as some mountain biking at the Canmore Nordic Centre. I'm going to focus on the hike on this post as the biking at the Nordic Center provides some great XC riding, but being a XC ski resort that's exactly what it offers. Nothing really exciting to report back except that it was a well marked, well maintained, XC network, ideal for a 4 or 5 inch travel XC bike. It's tight, twisty, rough and well it may not be on my list of destinations it's definitely worthwhile if you are in the area already. Surprisingly, it reminded me of a lot of the Ontario XC riding just on a little bigger scale.

This season we've been using some of the Guidebooks by Craig and Kathy Copeland as our guides to hikes in the Rockies and I highly suggest if you are going hiking in the Rockies you pick up a copy of Don't Waste Your Time in the Canadian Rockies. This book has been amazing! Accurately, ranking, describing, and giving directions for the best hikes in the Rockies. We've also been using a couple of their where the locals hike books, which also provides a good base for choosing hikes but the lack of a rating systems, as well as comparing the hikes on a more local scale resulting in a few hikes not yielding the expected blow you're mind status, but is still a great resource for planning your hikes.

Interestingly out of the 10 or so hikes we've done this year based on this series, this is the first one where I would tend to disagree on their opinion on how to do the hike. They listed this hike as Reed's Tower being the main goal and Mt. Sparrowhawk yielding great views but the amount of effort being required to reach it making it optional (The two peaks are the ones in the picture to the right). My personal opinion is that Mt. Sparrowhawk is the destination here and Reed's tower a sidetrip on the hike if you want to more KM's to make a full day out of the trip or if wind/weather stops you from reaching Mt. Sparrowhawks peak the more sheltered Reed's tower can be a consolation prize. Don't get me wrong the views on Reed's tower are great but I'm not sure I would have descended very satisfied if it was the highlight of the day.



So about the Hike itself this ones definitely a challenge. It's not your traditional hike where you climb some switchbacks out of the treeline, then have a mix of hiking through alpine meadows, and slight climbs/short steep ones, ending with a climb to/over a pass, or a scramble that is your goal for the day. This is essentially 6,000 ft of climbing non stop, next to no switchbacks, and more then half being considered an easy scramble. (i.e. no trail just you climbing on scree towards your end destination, I use easy because of the lack of route finding or technical skills needed to reach the base of Mt. Sparrowhawks peak but from a cardiovascular standpoint it's definately moderate to diffucult.) The hike starts at the Sparrowhawk Day use area along the Spray Lakes Road @ about 6,000 ft. with Mt. Sparrowhawk sitting at over 10,000ft. From there you start climbing through the trees for about 30 minutes till you reach your junction. Right takes you down a trail to the tarns which is a more popular hike (but I wouldn't suggest it in comparison to the other hikes in the Banff/Kanaskis area), left and you are hiking nearly straight up with few switchbacks towards Reed's Tower. It's about an hour from the trail head till you are out of the Treeline with great views from that point on. From there it's pretty straightforward and there's a bootpack trail to follow up to the base of Reed's Tower. If you choose scramble the Tower it's pretty straightforward start heading up the ridge for about 1000ft, or maybe a little less, of scrambling to the top. Here the views are good and the scramble is fairly easy with no route finding or technical skills needed just the fitness to get there.


When you get back down you walk around towers left side and begin the long Scramble to Mt. Sparrowhawk. After climbing for about an hour and half (maybe 2 hours) we reached the "pass" between Mt. Sparrowhawk and the peak South West of it. This was a point with mix emotions. It yielded gorgeous views on both sides of the pass and we where only a few hundred feet from the peak (I'm guessing about 800 or less). However, the winds and cold where being funneled down the spray lakes reservoir right at us making difficult to even stand in some of the gust. We stopped behind the little weather observation shed for a snack and had to make the decision to turn around. Primarily a result of the cold as Jess felt it throughout her body, and my gloves turned out to be inadequate to the point where a couple fingers had lost feeling and started to turn blue. (I would thought the black diamonds gloves would have been designed with synthetics that would keep their warmth once sweaty but I was wrong and should have paid more attention to the materials). A switch to wearing my extra pair of Merino Wool Socks on my hands help get them back to Temperature as we descended. Also the high winds posed some threat to walking on the peak. I think it would have been fine and being warmer or adequately geared up we would have carried on but needless to say the combination of the wind and cold resulted in the "pass" being our high point for the day.

We hiked back out going out around the opposite side of Reed's Tower. Unfortunately my camera's batteries died so I don't have any pictures from this side. But it's the route you should take if you are comfortable with a little route finding as it yields different views that are worth the extra kilometers, and the lack of a distinct trail makes finding your way back to the tarn trail an element of adventure on the X-Country hike. Well I guess this being the last hike of the season will result in things slowing down on here through the fall as I tumble into a little more of a training regiment for next summer, and ski season begins. Until them hope you've enjoyed some of my summer adventures and the pictures.

Reversal of Globalization?

For my birthday a couple of weeks ago I received, Let My People go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard that I look forward to reading. Yvon is the founder of Patagonia (an outdoor clothing and gear company) and has strong views on corporate/social responsibility and protecting the environment and ethical business practices. His book should prove to be quite interesting as he essentially covers three topics, creating a successful company you are passionate about, being environmentally and socially responsible and it is also kind of an autobiography about an interesting life following his passions. Skimming through the book (I still have to finish my book on Marco Polo before I can sit down and read it) he brought up a point that got me thinking a little and could generate a lot of discussion about the future of our economies.

In the reprinted version from 2006 he added an intro discussing what could essentially be a reversal of globalization to a certain extent, with a localization of our economy. His reasoning brings up some interesting thoughts.

"A dozen books have come out about oil, all pretty much saying the same thing: the end of the petroleum era will come sooner then later and we should prepare for a lifestyle that will be far different then what we have been enjoying for the last 150 years"

With the increased cost of energy comes an increased cost of transportation. The primary cause is the cost of oil, resulting in the cost of fuel going up, but also with the increases in energy costs results in the cost of building and maintaining trucks, boat, planes, etc. When you take the example of the clothing manufacturers they tend to follow a process similar to the following; Purchase cotton from Turkey, ship it in bales to Thailand to be processed to fabric, then shipped to Texas to be cut, next off to Mexico to be sown and finally back to a warehouse in the States before being redistributed across North America. As transportation cost are going up, they may soon outweigh the cost of manufacturing and materials in certain cases ultimately making a global economy based on cheap transportation unsustainable.

What effects would this have on our economies? Canada Exports nearly $500,000,000,000 in merchandise goods each year. Would the effects of localisation and curbed international purchase by Canadians be enough to counter these losses. How about a country like Australia that does not have the natural resources needed for food or to obtain lumber for construction? Will their economy be able to swallow the increased transportation cost? Crude oil cost have increased nearly 400% since 2003 and nearly 160% in the last 2 year! It's more than safe to say that outweighs inflation rates by an exuberant amount. Last time crude oil cost where rising this quickly it resulted in the recession in the early 80's. Now consider that many scientist estimate that our current access to oil supplies will last about 20 to 25 years before the extraction will become much more costly to get to the oil reserves that are more isolated. Will we be able to bounce back from a recession in the same way if the oil isn't as accessible anymore?

Needless to say the research into new forms of energy, hydrogen, solar, wind, Biofuels, etc. may eventually curve these increasing cost meaning business as usual but with the continuous reports how quickly our situation is decaying it leaves you to wonder, how much things will change in the next couple decades.

That's enough about the economy for now, contiue on and read something a little lighter like last weekends race stories or something.

Collapse - Jared Diamond

“With Collapse, Jared Diamond has written a fascinating account of the collape of civilizations around the world. … A reader cannot help but leave the book wondering whether we are following the track of these other civilizations that failed. Any reader of Collapse will leave the book convinced that we must take steps now to save our plant.”
- The Boston Globe

To all of you who haven't read this book yet, I strongly recommend you do. The authors research makes it hard not to wonder if we are on the same path as the many societies who didn’t survive. Combine this with our global economy and the scenario is even scarier. The key reason this book had a bigger impact on me then a lot of the other info I’ve read about the state of our environment is it wasn't written from a one sided point of view, the worlds coming to end, over-exaggerated perspective that many of the environmental books seem to be. Instead the author uses scientific/archeological examples of societies that have succeeded and have failed, building a strong case all the while being an extremely interesting read as he walks you through the history and cultures of multiple civilizations current and past.

Through this book the author analyzes civilizations/settlements such as; Easter Island and what seemed like a plentiful land when first settled, also exploring its many mysteries; The Polynesians and how the majority of their small and large settlements survived but the medium sized ones such as the Pitcairn Islands didn’t; The Anasazi’s in North America failing to survive in the South Western States with some of the most advance agricultural and political structures of the time; The Maya's collapse; The Norse Vikings settling in Greenlans and their inability to survive there while the Inuit did; Papa New Guinea and how they’ve succeed to survive for almost 3200yrs as a society, however the current involvement of western cultures will make it’s development interesting to follow over the next 10 to 20yrs; The Genocides in Rawanda and why it happened; A comparison of why the Dominican Republics environment, political structure, international trade and history of civil war are much more favorable then Haiti's while being on the same small island; China’s significance and its consequence leaving the largest environmental footprint on earth and what will happen if the reach current first world standards of living; The Australians and their current dependence on trade partners as their population is currently above a self sustainable level. Ultimately he tires to answer the questions of why and how these disastrous decisions are made and how we can avoid making the same mistakes repeated so many times in the past.

So do yourself a favor pick up a copy of this book to educate yourselves on some of the risks and challenges that face our society in 21st century which is bound to influence your views on our current situation.