Northover

Last weekend J Sparls had in true form planned a route in stride with the progressive nature of the season's outdoor pursuits. Following the multiday adventure the week before it was time to take proceedings to the next level and pursue the near impossible. Experts rate the Northover Ridge Loop at just over 30 km and recommend that the route be divided into a two day trip, in summer. This is confirmed on the www by chubby fellows in bad tilly hats and zip off khakis who drive out in F-150's, which left us with brimming confidence in our abilities to meet the self set challenge. By now the Rockies have assumed a very winter like feel with snow, low temperatures and shorter days. We figured we could tackle the entire loop in one day given our rate of travel the past few weeks. Not only did we give ourselves one day, but budgeted 8-9 hours for the loop that includes multiple ascents, ridge traverses and a glacier crossing. For this time around Sparls and I teamed up with the German mountaineering duo of the legendary Haspel siblings. Between Rebecca and Felix we felt we had enough alpine knowledge to curb our at times overzealous optimistic drive into potentially dangerous circumstance. We arrived at the trail head at Upper Kananaskis Lakes in the late morning and got the show underway.
After a long blast around the lake we found a scrawled sign pointing us up a valley towards Aster Lake, which we had hoped to hit around midday. This was to be the final pit before the largest hurdle of the day which was to gain the ridge, cross the glacier and find the way back down, but we were not worried, Aster Lake was only minutes away...
After picking out way through an endless mess of dead fall and no trail we came into a dried up lake clearing, crossed it and hit what we thought were the final low slopes before lake. Hours later after navigating icy windswept ridges, nipple deep snow and rocky steeps we had eaten away daylight and failed to find the lake. Our most pessimistic schedule was long passed and standing waist deep in powder in an isolated alpine tree cluster we decided enough was enough and it was time to admit defeat and head back the way we had come.

The ridge on the way back down offered a few solid chutes to do some sliding. Once back into the valley we lit up the headlamps and trudged our way back to where we had started with constilations overhead. After 28 kilometers and 9 hours on the trail we piled into the Durango and turned our hearts towards home.