Banded and Outlaw Peaks
Kananaskis
May 28, 2005

Taking advantage of the fine weather we decided to bag two peaks. However, not all was fine with Dinah. Unknowingly she had become dehydrated when we climbed Mount Lady Macdonald the day before. While biking to the trailhead to Banded Peak, she suffered from fatigue, headache and sore muscles. Realizing she was dehydrated, she stopped frequently to rest and drink water. Two hours after starting out, we traded our cycling cleats for hiking boots and slowly headed up the trail.

We had no trouble following the trail to the basin until it disappeared when it hit solid rock. We climbed up the east slope expecting to spot it from above but no such luck. The trail, if there was one, probably ran along the bottom before heading up the west slope. Most of that was under snow so we traversed a talus slope and then, after squeezing between slabs below and cliff bands above, we reached the Banded-Outlaw col.

Although Outlaw Peak filled our view while going up the basin, it wasn’t until we arrived on the col that we finally saw our first objective, Banded Peak. Despite its name it resembled nothing more than a huge pile of scree.

Dinah still hadn’t recovered and as we crunched up the loose rock it was touch and go if she would make it to the summit. Eventually though we found ourselves standing next to the summit cairn looking at the bewildering contents of the register canister: toys cars, music CDs, a key chain, a circular slide rule and other such nonsense. A card read: “Congratulations! You have found Banded Peak Cache.”

The register held a September entry congratulating the first adventurers to arrive on the peak since the placement of the cache. Alas, another party beat us to the peak by five days.

Summiting Banded Peak infused Dinah with energy: she wanted to go on to bag Outlaw Peak. We returned to the col and then we headed up another scree pile, Outlaw Peak.

The loose rock here was worse than that on Banded Peak. It seemed to go on forever, but quicker than we expected we were on the summit of Outlaw. After skimming the summit register and taking some photos we made our way down. We had no trouble finding scree runs for a fast descent down to the col.

Soon we were navigating through the basin. Under the blazing sun, water from melting snow trickled, flowed, and roared. The sound of running water was all around us. The din gradually diminished as we hiked down the trail to retrieve our bikes.

MOVIE (1:51)
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