Our second outing in as many days, took us to Exshaw and the start of the long trek up Mount Fable. Craving a guaranteed success after the previous day's disappointments, the summit of Mount Fable seemed to be a very illogical choice for this time of year. From Heart Creek, large amounts of snow were still visible on the Fable/Gap Peak ridge and we had no idea if the ridge to the summit was covered in deep snow or not. Oh well, that's never stopped us before - why should it now!

The hike up Exshaw and Fable Creeks was not as bad as I was expecting. In places, snow made travel a little easier, especially higher up Fable Creek, as we passed under the eye-catching peak of Fable and steep walls of Gap Peak. Unfortunately, we jumped the gun at this point, turning right and heading straight towards the summit, alongside a jutting out layer of rock. We should have instead continued up the gully towards the scree slopes. When we reached the towering walls below the summit, we were unable to traverse left to get to the scree slopes and had to descend a gully, losing about 45 minutes in time. No matter - eventually we did make it up to the col between Fable and Gap Peak. Here, the scenery was wonderful: the snow covered slopes of Gap Peak, topped with a long, shapely cornice, and numerous interesting, unnamed peaks to the north and east.

From the col, the hike to summit was not terribly long, however, snow cover on the slabby terrain made travel a little tricky and a couple of times we had to backtrack to find alternate routes. Finally, we dragged our way onto the summit ridge almost 6 hours after leaving the car. We stopped here, about 50 horizontal meters and maybe only 1 vertical meter from the true summit. The narrow ridge had a considerable amount of snow on it and the extra distance simply wasn't worth the risk. 

I thought it would a long time (if ever) before we found a summit panorama to match that of Mount Cory, from our ascent 2 weeks earlier. We were very pleasantly surprised to discover that Fable's summit view did just that. We could pick out an incredible number of familiar peaks, including The Wedge, Fisher Peak, Bogart, Birdwood, Smuts, Shark, Assiniboine, and Inglismaldie. Also, Lougheed, Allan and Collembola, The Windtower, and Rimwall were especially striking. We stayed at the summit for 40 minutes, reveling in the stunning scenery.

The first half of the descent was relatively easy and at times a great deal of fun, as we found a few good places to glissade down. The interesting scenery was further enhanced by the clear sky, now a beautiful deep shade of blue. With fatigue setting in, the second half was not as pleasant and we were both completely exhausted by the end. Overall, a great day, a good scramble, and as always - time well spent.

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