Wanting to achieve the earliest possible arrival time back at the trailhead, we wasted no time in packing up the tent and the rest of our gear, and we were starting our walk down the Aster Lake trail at 11 a.m. The day had turned into a carbon copy of pretty much every day so far on this trip: warm, muggy, a hazy sky, and variably cloudy. The only thing to make it complete would be an afternoon shower - something we hoped would occur after we arrived at the car.
courtesy JInnes
Starting journey to trailhead
Starting descent of Aster Lk Trail
The first part of the way back - the most scenic part - was indeed just that: a beautiful mountain walk over easy trail. We chose to take the path across the dry pond we had skirted on the way up, and this turned out to be an easy and good choice.
courtesy JInnes
Intimate little side creek
courtesy JInnes
Limestone ribs of Mt Sarrail
After almost an hour's worth of walking, we arrived back at the top of the "scrambling" bit of the trail - the section of steep slopes, talus and rock that connected the high alpine terrain we were on with the lower, forested terrain around Hidden Lake. First up was the descent of the 3-meter high chimney. I managed it without incident, but Jenn had one of her footholds give way on her, and she stumbled backward into the earthy gully, picking up a scrape and a cut or two but otherwise staying upright.
Jenn downclimbing chimney
After the excitement of the little downscramble, we carefully (but quite easily, really) followed the traversing scree path across the steep lower buttresses of Mt Sarrail, then down the final bit of scree and into the forest above Hidden Lake.
courtesy JInnes
Nearing end of talus trail
On the way back around Hidden Lake, we once again chose a hybrid solution - following the high-water "bypass" route for a while, then picking our way down to the shoreline where it looked passable (as a result, please note that my GPS tracklog around Hidden Lake will reflect this back-and-forth). We did, however, choose the same "cutoff" route to cross over from Hidden Lake to Upper Kananaskis Lake that we used on the way in. I'll repeat again that it appears that the route we took (which is in good condition and relatively cleared) appears to be newer than the paths described in old trip reports (in those older reports, the cutoff path is shown to start nearly at the northern tip of Hidden Lake).
