NightFlight to Venus

I mean Night Hike to Indefatigable.

Wanted to continue the streak of doing something cool every saturday (used to be hiking/getting out of the city but Bell City Chase 'spoiled' that plan). But I was busy with a JET orientation / Q&A session this saturday. But then I figured, if I go early, I could do a hike before the JET thing. Then I thought, wouldn't it be cool to watch a sunrise from atop a mountain? (The answer was 'yes') So I hatched my little plan and mentioned it to Don and Chris. I wasn't sure if it was crazy-cool or crazy-stupid, but they figured it was crazy cool and were willing to come along. In the end, Chris wasn't able to make it, but two more people at work heard about our plan and joined up.

So we met around 1:00 AM saturday morning. By the time landlord stuff was done, then dinner, then a bit of time for digestion, I'd had just over one hour in bed and I'm not sure that I even fell asleep. Once everyone arrived, headed out to Kananaskis and started our hike at 2:30 AM. It was pretty dark when in the trees, but we all had headlamps (though generally just used a couple). When out of the trees, the moonlight was pretty good. At some point we ended up off the trail and had to make up our own path for a while, but eventually made it back to the proper trail. It got steadily lighter as we got nearer the top, and we stopped short of the peak to watch a while. It was cold and nothing was happening, so we went all the way and were at the peak around 5:30, just before the sun made its glorious appearence. It was really great to watch, totally worth it. By about 6:00, the sun was heading behind some clouds, and we were heading back down the mountain. Though I continued to get some of the greatest photos ever. Made it to the base shortly before 8:00, and got back into Calgary at 9:00. That left just enough time to drive home, shower, and eat before starting the JET thing.