Nub Peak, The Nublet, The Niblet Loop
Completed when foggy and wet, possible in most if not all summer and fall conditions. Our route choice was a clockwise loop from Lake Magog Campground, although any route choice should work. I'd recommend scrolling around the map and seeing what looks fun and works best with your trip. The things that you don't want to miss are the small sections of Nub Peak called The Nublet and the Niblet, that may be the absolute crown jewel of the Assiniboine area. Many trips are recommended to this location to get all the lighting perspectives (sunrise, sunset, daylight). This is truly a photographer's paradise. Walking by Cerulean, Sunburst, and Elizabeth Lakes is a perk of doing this as a loop.
The Niblet may be the most popular hike in the Assiniboine area, and arguably this is for very good reason. The simple and easy ascent for a triple lake Assiniboine view is almost unbeatable. Further up, the slightly less popular Nublet offers a slightly different perspective of what is essentially the same view (but better in my opinion). Less people tend to venture all the way to the only true summit of Nub Peak because the "view to difficulty ratio" worsens. Nub Peak is an official summit that was named descriptively in 1924. The southwest arm of Nub Peak is officially known as Chuck's Ridge, while the southeast arm is officially known as the Nublet. The Niblet is just the tiny final extension of the ridge (this is the most popular spot). If you choose to pass by Sunburst Lake, you will walk by the Elizabeth Rummel Cabin historic site. Elizabeth was a prominent figure in the early Rockies days, managing many lodges and chalets, as well as being a skier and mountaineer, before running her own lodge by Sunburst Lake. Elizabeth Lake (and likely Lizzie Meadows), Rummel Lake, Rummel Pass, Rummel Creek, and a street and elementary school in Canmore are named after her. There are many more extensive articles about her life, as well as a great summary posted at the cabin itself should you choose to visit it.
The Mount Shark parking lot is situated at the very end of the Mount Shark Road, which is essentially at the furthest point on the Spray Lakes Road (Highway 742). From Calgary, both the south option and north are similar in time, although the north section of the road has a slow speed limit and can get quite bumpy. The road is all gravel, but a high clearance vehicle is not required. The total driving time from the Calgary city limits from either direction is just under 2 hours. From the parking lot, you must hike in 25 km or helicopter in to Mount Assiniboine Lodge or Lake Magog Campground, where the route begins.
This route describes our route taken from Lake Magog Campground, but there are plenty of other viable options of trips (like my Nublet, Niblet, Lake Magog Trip) and all is quite straightforward hiking with some easy scrambling on Nub and Nublet. Depending on where you are in the campground, the beginning section may be a little different. Generally, you will want to head straight up the hill and to the upper cook house. Using a map and the signs posted is helpful here. Look for Sunburst Lake on the signs and once you eventually find the right trail, hike up it a surprisingly short distance to Sunburst Lake, where you will pass by the Elizabeth Rummel Cabin and soon reach Cerulean Lake. At the end of the lake, keep right and gain some elevation until the turnoff to Nub, which is to the right. Here you must decide on your final route for the day. Continuing on our route, keep straight and just past Elizabeth Lake, there will be a faint trail leading to the right and up the avalanche gully. Follow it up the gully until the col (GPS map is useful to find the actual trail). From the col, walk up the ridge until a suspicious flat section, where you should traverse until you find a trail leading up to Nub Peak, walk up to the summit. Heading back down will likely give you the best views of the day, possibly even of the trip. Props to you if you can time hitting the Nublet/Niblet with sunset too, that would be perfect. From Nub Peak, retrace your steps until the flat section, but keep straight and to the climber's left and follow the trail down through a couple short scrambling sections until the Nublet. Descend on the best trail from the Nublet to the Niblet and make sure to take some triple lake pictures! Before reaching the Niblet, there is a trail leading right, which will take you back down to the trail that you took up. If you want to extend your trip, you can also hike straight over the Niblet and then take a right turn at any of the intersections lower down (this is the route from Assiniboine Lodge).
I have to just start this one by saying that if you didn't read the Lake Magog report, you may want to check it out for a bit of background on this trip because this report is going to start off right where the other one left off.
Alright, so after we got the tent up, a relax done, and some food in, we were somehow ready for a peak. In hindsight, this may not have been the smartest idea, but what the heck, you don't get a lot of time in Assiniboine is your life, so when you're up there you gotta take advantage.
In the back of my mind I was still praying that the sky would magically clear for an epic sunset, especially since the weather models had it as clear after 7:00. So, planning for a sunset at the Niblet at 7:30, we set off at just after 4:00.
I do admit that the campground is a bit confusing, but I think stumbling around and reading the signs does an alright job at getting you where you want to go.
We found the correct trail to our objective. I love these signs so much.
Sunburst Lake came up surprisingly quickly and we enjoyed the view of Sunburst peak over it, even if it was still cloudy.
The cabin was quite small. Not sure where Lizzie housed her 10 guests...
Very shortly after Sunburst we got to Cerulean Lake, which was actually fairly significant in size.
Make sure to keep right.
The lovely fall colours were starting to come out.
We chose to continue straight instead of turning right. We'd be coming back down from the latter though.
Elizabeth Lake was very calm compared to the other two.
Oops. We went a tad too far so we'd have to bushwhack a bit to the right from the Chuck's Ridge route.
The slope we were heading up (aiming directly for the col). At this point I was even becoming a little concerned that the larches wouldn't even be yellow by the end of our trip... Very late year.
We surprisingly found this very good but very steep trail that helped out with the slog up this slope.
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We also found this guy messing around on Chuck's Ridge.
Looking over the col of Chuck's Ridge and Nub Peak. Not the greatest view.
Looking back over Elizabeth Lake. Apparently the clouds didn't have much intention of clearing.
I'm not sure exactly where it was, but somewhere around here my dad mentioned that he was feeling like he was getting sick and just very bad overall. He had mentioned this earlier briefly, and I had also noted that I had a tickle in my chest earlier in the morning. I felt completely fine at this point though, but he did not. We had a big and early day on the Cautley Traverse planned for the next morning though, so we would have to figure that out.
After a short rest, we continued slogging up.
Looking back at Chuck's Ridge. Why do they even bother naming these things?
And now into the cloudy, rainy, windy mess. Great. Note the cairn and noticeable trail.
Now it was time to traverse a bit to find the main trail to the top. This flat and very red meadow was quite odd just popping out of the fog.
The trail leading to the summit.
My dad let me go up to the top since he didn't find it to be worth the extra effort. Plus it was cold, windy, and raining. Deadly combo if you ask me. I then powered up to the summit to claim it, knowing I'd likely be back for the view on a clear day. It was only about 100 m elevation and a few hundred meters distance, so it only took a few minutes.
The massive summit cairn. I've seriously seen too many of these. Like who has the time to build these things?? And it's not like the rocks are small either. It kind of gets you thinking...
I don't believe that anyone will have interest in the completely gray and brown summit pano that I still took for some reason, so we will unfortunately be skipping that this time. I really didn't stay long at the top since there wasn't much to do, so I quickly began heading down to rejoin my dad and get out of this horribly gloomy cloud.
Looking back up the meadow while descending. The remaining snow shows that it is very cold.
After just under 15 minutes, I rejoined my dad.
There were a flock of ptarmigans clucking around in the meadow.
Now entering the scrambling section.
Now coming back down out of the clouds! I was beginning to worry that the sudden forecasted clearing of the sky would indeed not be happening.
Our view from The Nublet was quite dismal. I would be back in two days to get a better view though.
There is a tiny bit of scrambling to get down from the Nublet to the Niblet.
As we got down to the Niblet, something weird starting happening with the clouds.
They turned very blue, almost like they were getting super thin and see through.
The clouds were so blue that I thought they might even just completely disappear for a nice sunset. I kept this hope for about 45 minutes and during this time, we ate so much food and took a few intermittent photos. My dad began down a while before me, and as the sun set with no colour, I began down as well.
This was probably the best shot that I got with the best color and the three lakes. It was quite nice, I do have to admit.
Running down to catch up with my dad after sunset.
I absolutely flew down the trail and probably made up 15 minutes, catching my dad down by the lakes. As we hiked down, we discussed the next day's plan and changed it from doing the Cautley to doing Sunburst since my Dad wasn't feeling well. Also, if we did Cautley, we would have to be up super early and back before 12 to then walk to Og Lake. It was just too big of a day. Thankfully, Sunburst was a great option that was short and close by.
When we arrived back at the tent, we didn't even have dinner (we ate too much on The Niblet anyways) so we plopped into bed and fell asleep.
Looking back on this day, it was massive. Maybe not in terms of elevation and it may not be the biggest yet, but it sure was a lot, even if we didn't really consider it to be a big day at the time. But when you're getting sick at the beginning of a 4-day backpacking trip? Maybe it wasn't the best idea.