Goats: Devil's Head was suppose to be the objective for this past weekend, but my partner bailed at the last minute. Unable to find a replacement on such short notice, I decided to revisit Mt Bourgeau. Ten years ago, almost to the day, I came across a new book by Al Kane in the Book and Art Den in Banff. I looked up Bourgeau and couldn't believe that one could reach the summit in 4-6 hours by simply walking up 1500 vertical metres! For a year I'd had a picture perfect view of this cornice, crowned jewel, looking west from my apartment in Banff and had always wondered how those crazy climbers could scale something so seemingly impenetrable. Little did I know that a walk up route was hidden around back and that many other mountains could be ascended in a similar manner. So armed with the scrambler's guide and accompanied by another neophyte, fresh out of La Belle Province, we set off one fine day in July 1992 to "conquer" the monstrosity. After a few hours we arrived at Bourgeau Lake only to gaze up, way up, to the summit which still appeared to be as far out of our reach as it did from my window in Banff. How, we wondered, were we going to have enough time, let alone energy, to get to this still distant summit and back before dark? Well much to our surprise, 41/2 hours from the car, we arrived at the summit. I guess this Kane guy and his book were for real after all :)

Ten years later, July 6 2002, would seem appropriate to do an "anniversary" ascent, only this time to see if I could run it. Which I did in 2:29, running about 60-70% of the terrain and power walking the rest. A cloudless, windless magical morning, on the summit at 8:45 am. Three cheers for endorphins!