North Kootenay Mountain (Centre E3) - Castle Wildland Provincial Park - Alberta, Canada

2022-10-02 - Melissa and I have passed by North Kootenay Mountain / Centre E3 several times. I've often thought about making my way to the peak but usually before or after I get to some more challenging objective. I had this sort of "back burner" type of thinking because the ascent is so simple. It is probably the easiest peak to get to in Castle Wildland Prov. Park and more like the big hills in the adjacent Castle Prov. Park such as Mt. Backus, Carbondale Hill, Poker Peak, Maverick Hill, Hearts Peak and Cherry Hill.
But despite the ease of the west slope approach it is still a good size mountain and offers fantastic views, especially of the wall of peaks on the Flathead Range that lie from North Kootenay Pass to Mt. Coulthard. So, on a beautiful Autumn day it seemed like a great objective.
We have hiked all the way to North Kootenay Pass a couple of times but the area really is best explored by bike. This was another good opportunity for us to try out our new pedal assisted e-bikes. But even with the pedal assist we did have to push the bikes a few times especially as the roads were really muddy. Soon after riding through the last crossing of the Carbondale River we stashed our bikes as we wanted to have a mix of biking and hiking. Once hiking we only went another 1Km or so before heading into a light bushwhack near the foot of the west slope of North Kootenay. This bushwhack can be avoided by continuing on a short distance to a old road that cuts through the bush and ends in a small field overlooking North Kootenay to the East and the "Flathead South" to the west.
Soon after entering the bush I went on solo while Melissa went back to the bikes and started studying for her college classes. She had even lugged up her laptop! Sounds odd but what better place to study than far into the Castle Wildland?!
Once through the bush there is nothing really in the realm of "route finding" as I just turned right (E) and went up and up. The slope is moderately steep but as I had already climbed Tecumseh, Chinook, Chief (Nínaiistáko) and Ptolemy SE5 this year the slope seemed almost comically easy by comparison.
Once at the summit I was given the gift of an amazing summit expanse. After a good rest on the peak I headed down along the same path.
References:
Nugara, Andrew. (2017). Snowshoeing in the Canadian Rockies. 2nd Ed. Calgary, AB: Rocky Mountain Books.
Online:
peaksandstream...
anugara.net/no...
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