Just when you thought it was safe to put the snowshoes in storage...not even close! Even without the past week's huge amount of precipitation, the deep snow plastered on almost every slope in the Kananaskis area would prevent any ascent without the aid of skis or snowshoes. Luckily we brought our snowshoes along and therefore enjoyed a second straight week of great scenery and unbelievably, crazy weather.

The route to the glacier was easy (just follow the creek), and even though we started the trip under cloudy skies, they started to clear, as we made our way up avalanche slopes towards the glacier. As mentioned, the snow was very deep and numerous avalanches had come down the slopes - old ones as well as very recent slides. This was definitely a concern for us and so we tried to avoid the most dangerous looking areas as best we could. Also, throughout the entire day, we were treated to the tremendous crack of snow releasing off the steep walls of Old Goat Mountain and the resulting avalanche - we heard at least 15 or so slides.

Ascending the avalanche slope was quite laborious, however, the scenery was wonderful and only got better as the sky cleared. At the top, in a beautiful hanging valley, rested Old Goat Glacier, surrounded on both sides by the steep walls of Old Goat Mountain. Of course, the entire area was covered in deep snow and so it was impossible to tell exactly where the glacier began. As we continued along the very pleasant ridge towards the col at the end of the glacier, the weather took a turn for the worse and suddenly we were in almost whiteout conditions with lightly falling snow. After a long break, we decided to continue, even though the weather had worsened still and now we could not even see the col. We were hoping that the clouds would clear and suddenly they did, once again revealing the beautiful surroundings.

Unfortunately, our progress ended at the end of the ridge. Here, we would have been forced to traverse steep, snow covered slopes that looked to be extremely avalanche prone - I guess the fact that the slopes were also covered in avalanche debris was a pretty good indicator of this! It was too risky and disappointed, we turned around. About two minutes later, the blue sky blackened and we were hit hard by strong winds and heavy snow - a mini blizzard. Thankfully, it was short-lived and within 15 minutes the sky was again clear - the 5^th dramatic weather change of the day - and not the last.

In an effort to make up for our disappointment at not reaching the col, we tried to ascend slopes to the east of the glacier to the ridge overlooking Spray Lake. We made it up a fairly steep snow slope, but when we reached the rock, it turned out it be quite steep and probably would have been difficult to descend. Once again, we backed down.

The highlight of the return trip to the car, again, was the continually changing weather. Cloudy, clear, two more mini-blizzards, a whiteout in front of us and sunshine behind us - it was thoroughly amazing.

Overall, a relatively easy, but delightfully scenic and interesting trip. When the snow has melted we will definitely be returning to make the col.