Maculot - summit bagged but traverse failed (07.02.2013)

We climbed without a local guide. The trail to the Rockies was easy to find and follow. So was the trail to the highest point of Maculot, even though it was somewhat overgrown and had plenty of thorns that ripped up our clothes and skin. While 95% climb the lower Rockies, only 5% continue to the true summit of Maculot. The reason for this is that while the Rockies has very nice views, the true summit has no views at all (dense forest). So most people (except peakbaggers of course) do not see any purpose of climbing 200+ meter higher.

From the summit of Mt Maculot, we then continued the traverse to the other side of the mountain, but the overgrown trail turned out to be a dead-end (tall cliff). We realised our mistake when we climbed back to the summit of Maculot and could see a third trail descending from there. But the mistake had cost us a lot of time and it was getting too late to risk more mistakes. So we decided that the safest option was to backtrack to the same trailhead.

Link to my GPS track on everytrail.com