August 27th, 2023. Skoki Valley (Banff), Alberta.
Round Trip: 6 Hours, +16km, Elevation Gain: +1100m
Easy Scramble, Mostly Hiking
Bri and I were on a time crunch that day and wanted to take advantage of the almost smoke-free conditions that day. It had been years since we were last in Skoki and we essentially had all of the Kane scrambles to choose from, with Mt Richardson being my only previous Skoki summit. We were joined by our friends Mel and Neil for this outing and settled on Lipalian Mountain given its easy rating, quick access, and opportunity for potential extensions. Having read Kane’s (2016) Scrambles 3rd Edition and cross-referencing Bob Spirko’s website, we set out for Lipalian and included both Purple Peak and Wolverine Ridge making for a nice loop. We considered adding Unity Peak to the mix but decided against it given our time constraints.
We managed to start from the Skoki parking lot at 8:30am and had to be back in Golden before 5pm, so begun the trek up the fire road at a steady pace. It had been quite smoky leading up this trip and while there was a lingering haze, we were treated to a bluebird day! This was mostly a hike, following up a ski run east of the Ptarmigan and Larch Express lifts. Lots of late summer wildflowers and berries amongst the slopes, so we kept our group close knit and all individually carried bear spray. Roughly half an hour before hitting the summit, shortly after the top of Larch Express, we arrived at the one scrambly section of the route in the form of some boulder-stacked cliff bands. These were easy enough to navigate through and the rock was surprisingly decent quality, for Rockies standards anyway. We reached the summit of Lipalian just after 11am and the views did not disappoint!
With some time to spare, we quickly decided on continuing the ridge towards Purple Peak, which made for a scenic extension with some elevation loss/regain. The peak, or mound as Kane refers to it, is indeed purple and has a geological survey marker near its top, so I guess that counts as its own peak?! The traverse between Lipalian and Purple took us around 30-40 minutes to complete at a leisurely pace. From here we had a better view of Unity Peak and while the ridge does connect, we could see at least one troublesome cliff band that would warrant helmets (which we left at home) or would require a long bypass. Sticking to our time crunch, and given it had already taken 40 minutes from Lipalian to Purple, we decided to save Unity Peak for a future trip.
After enjoying our summit visit to Purple, we decided to follow Wolverine Ridge back down to the main trail making for a loop. For this extension we referenced Bob Spirko’s trip report for Wolverine Ridge and essentially followed his map in reverse. Initially a gentle downhill stroll, towards the end of the ridge we had to make a sharp turn left (west) as to return back to valley bottom. Heading due north would have lead to some very exposed cliff bands and thick forest, whereas taking the turn we did led down a steep but manageable slope. It was Mel’s first outing with us and this slope proved a bit challenging for her but she made it down in one piece. At the slope’s bottom we had a very brief bushwhack on route to a clearing that connected back with the main trail (5-10 minutes). The nice thing about heading down Wolverine Ridge was we had a bird’s eye view of the main Skoki trail most of the traverse and thus were able to aim for it early on. Once returned the trail, it was a straight forward and hot hike back to the car, completing our return trip in roughly 6 hours.
In terms of effort versus reward, I would put Lipalian in the same category as Paget Peak and The Judge, great views for a modest half day (or less) effort with minimal technicalities. Very beginner friendly, though as with all Skoki trips, save it for late summer or autumn to avoid the bugs!
Steep Sheep 