Ha Ling and Miner’s Peaks

Tourist, or live in Calgary, – this hike is a must. It was closed for a while, and after maintenance the trail is very popular. I normally would come early to avoid crowds. The parking seems to be large now but my guess is during summer touristy season it will be very busy. This time we had some morning issues to resolve, and started the hike only on 10:30 AM. There were a lot of people coming up and down already, but it still was amazing.

Trail preview here.

The trail begins right from the parking across road 742.

It goes steady up through the forest, with a few switchbacks, until reaches the 1st viewpoint, from which you can see East End Of Rundle and Whitemans Pond below it.

There is a sign marking 1.2 km to the col, and you continue hiking up through the forest from here. Pretty soon you’ll encounter a steeper section, but nice stone steps and chain make it easy. Then there are 3 sections of wooden stairs, and you end up just in 5 minutes of steep but easy push up to the col. If you question yourself what are the wooden stairs for, try Sarrail Ridge some time, and you’ll totally get it. The stairs make all the difference between “hard” and “moderate” (not so much in winter though, but winter hike to Ha Ling worth a separate post). Anyway, once you are on the col (saddle between Ha Ling and Miner’s), you have options:

1. 1. If you are out of stamina, stay there and enjoy the view of Canmore and Bow Valley:
   2. Go to the left and climb up to Ha Ling Peak:
   3. Go to the right and traverse to Miner’s Peak:

In our opinion, the best course of action is to do Ha Ling first (there are much better 360 degrees views of the Bow Valley, East End of Rundle, Goatview, Sundance and other surrounding mountains from there).

If the weather is good and not too windy (which is unusual for Ha Ling), some people may hang out there for a while:

Once you are done with that, aim back to the saddle and traverse to Miner’s:

It may seem overwhelming, but you are already almost there. Ascent to Miner’s is not difficult at all, and the views are incredible (in our opinion, even better than from Ha Ling), so it’s 100% worth the effort.

As a bonus, you get a very impressive angle of Ha Ling

where you’ve just been 20 minutes ago:

but compared to Ha Ling, the Miner’s is pretty quiet because in fact not a lot of people feel like they can do two peaks in one hike. But some other people may even do three: Mt. Lawrence Grassi is right there and it seems like trail too:

And then there is descent, which is kind of leg burner, but have hiking poles with you, and you’ll be OK. The part right above the wooden stairs may looks a bit scary from above, especially in winter,

but once you step on it, you’ll be at the top of the stairs in a few minutes, and then look back up and will be like “Wow, how it was even possible?”

A few fascinating hiking reports which can inspire some ideas:

Ha Ling Pk – Miners Pk – Mt Lawrence Grassi traverse

Ha Ling to Ship’s Prow

Ha Ling – Lawrence Grassi Traverse

More photos here: