Height of the Rockies

Ron Miller and Cathy Borer are returning to Height if the Rockies:

Note from Ron:

Just wanted to make sure everyone is aware that we are returning to continue our cave reconnaissance work in the Height of the Rockies park at the end of this month into the first week of August, and that you all are invited to join us!

Those flying in from south of the border are planning to arrive Calgary Thursday 27 July, and depart Calgary 8/8. We plan to leave from Jason's house in Canmore relatively early on Friday 28 July, with the thought that if we get off at a reasonable hour, we could get up to Goat Lake by Friday night. Anyone driving or coming from other areas could join us at the Maiyuk Creek Recreation Site, where we met up last year. We will probably head down from Goat Lake on Sunday 6 August.

After a short 4WD approach on logging roads from Maiyuk Creek, the trail up to Goat Lake is about 9 km with about 400 m of elevation gain. The lower sections are pretty easy to follow, as long as you start out in the right place (which we discovered the hard way last year!); the upper sections have a less well developed trail but the terrain is fairly open. We'll also send out a GPS track and waypoints from last year, so anyone can join us later or leave earlier.

Our primary objective this year is a stunningly beautiful area of exposed limestone containing hundreds of visible holes, at an elevation of about 2,400 meters and generally west of a lake informally known as "Goat Lake". Before our first reconnaissance last summer, this area had apparently never been visited previously by cavers (other than a couple of cursory visits from passing mountaineers Kirk Mauthner and Arnor Larson), despite having a pretty sizable tract of exposed Palliser limestone with significant length and depth potential. Last summer, we only spent a day and a half exploring this area (after returning from the area below the Abruzzi glacier), so much of the limestone area remains completely unchecked. In our short time there, however, we did find a bunch of cave entrances. Most were relatively short pits, but one had a 40 m deep pit beyond the entrance pit, and another had a 30 m deep entrance pit whose base was clogged with snow and which had a side lead partway down that we didn't have time to check out. Last year, we of course also confirmed the presence of a significant resurgence about 8 km to the south and 650 m lower in elevation, though it's unclear whether its source is the Goat Lake area or the area south of Mount Abruzzi that we focused on last year.

I also am hoping to check out a bench on the west side of the valley below the Abruzzi glacier that we hiked past last year. Philip Schuchardt recently noticed a number of apparent cave entrances and a big doline on the aerial and Google Earth imagery from this area, which appear to lie about three km directly north (along strike) of, and about 600 m above, the significant resurgence west of Connor Lakes that we hiked past last year on our way to the Abruzzi glacier area. Based on aerial imagery, this area should be reachable from the Goat Lake basecamp by scrambling over a low col a few km to the south of Goat Lake.