Elevation Gain: 1,817m
Distance: 18.51km
Total Time: 10 hours 56 minutes
Date: September 7th, 2024
Red Mountain is not all that interesting of a summit when compared with the nearby Mount Sheer or Ben Lomond. However, it’s quite hard to reach except from the Furry Creek side and Andrea and I couldn’t pass hiking up it after Ben Lomond.
We had reached the large talus field below Ben and Andrea went to get some snow melt water while I scrambled further down to a running water source near the col. After refilling we met again just above the col and walked up the ridge. The terrain was a mix of heather, stunted alpine trees and smooth granite slabs, making for an easy ascent up. There was one steep section of loose dirt to overcome and then we had the summit to ourselves.
The views weren’t all that much different than Ben Lomond, but it was a worthwhile detour nonetheless. We returned to the col via the same route we came up, but this time we followed the official path/route around “Ben More”. This avoided too much unnecessary elevation gain and we were soon above Wind Lake again. We skirted around the north side and made our way back along the trail to the Mountain Lake Hut, just as the sun was starting to set. All in a perfect day with 3 beautiful summits to check out!
