Chickadee Peak has been on my radar ever since seeing Raf's trip report on it. Back when Wietse and I did Boom Mountain, I remember looking at all the skiable terrain further up the Chickadee Valley and wondering if there were any other peaks we could ski in the area. Well, it turns out that there is!

On Sunday, April 19th we awoke in -15 degrees feeling pretty darn good with ourselves. The previous day we'd skied into our camp beneath Mount Columbia and even managed to ascend the peak before collapsing into our sleeping bags after a long and hard 17 hour day.

I've been waiting many years to climb Alberta's highest mountain and the 2nd highest peak of the Canadian Rockies. Ever since reading Dave Stephen's day trip report in 2004 and a trip by JW and Raf in 2006 it's been on my radar and in 2009 when a whole bunch of friends climbed it (but not without incident).

As the first peak of my 40's, I thought it would be nice to tag an 11000er that's been on my radar for many years. Mount Athabasca looms over the Columbia Icefields center along highway 93 - otherwise known as the Icefields Parkway. I'm sure it has the most tourist photographs of any 11,000er, except maybe Mount Temple in Lake Louise or Robson to the north.

The wind was forecast to be strong all over the Rockies on Sunday, March 29, 2015. The forecasts were right. I woke several times in the Bighorn Campground near Ya Ha Tinda by the sounds of a gusty west wind. When the alarm went off at 04:00 it was still gusting pretty strong but at least the sky over us was clear and the air temperate was quite warm at around 5 degrees Celsius.

It wasn't looking good as I sat in the Tim Horton's in Sundre on Saturday, March 28 2015. It was around 11 in the morning and it was pouring outside! Not just a mist, but a full on down pour. I was waiting for Steven and Ben to arrive from Edmonton before we continued our drive to the Bighorn Campground in the Ya Ha Tinda area of the front ranges.

We ascended Haddo after Aberdeen on a tough winter ascent via the south face / gully system.

Lookout Mountain is a no-brainer for peak baggers doing the Youngs Peak Traverse in Rogers Pass, Glacier National Park. It is actually lower than the Illecillewaet Glacier, which you'll be traversing past the peak on your way to Youngs Peak anyway. The views from the peak are excellent and well worth the 30 minute side trip.

It was finally time. It was time for me to give in. After years of temptation, years of friends cajoling and battering me over the issue and years of resistance, it was finally time for me to ski at Roger's Pass in the Selkirk mountain range of British Columbia.

Finally the weather, our schedules, and back country avalanche conditions lined up over a weekend, allowing Ben, Steven and I to plan a 2 day excursion to the northern end of the Wapta Icefield. I am rapidly closing in on a long-sought summit list of all the Wapta peaks and only one peak remained for me on the hard-to-access northern end - Peyto Peak.

The weekend of January 17th found me with a mountain itch. The last outing for me was on December 31, when I snow shoed up Rawson Lake Ridge in Kananaskis. A month is a long time between summits for me.

After looking at our options for the weekend, Ben, Steven and I decided that it made the most sense to try for a hiking or snow shoe trip on Sunday, December 14th. Considering the snow conditions everywhere, we settled on Maze Peak in the Ya Ha Tinda Ranch area of the Rockies, west of Sundre Alberta.