This was my second time up Mount Jimmy Simpson. It took us 8 hours, but that was with a fairly lengthy stay at summit, so round trip was probably about 7.25hrs. For me to choose to summit a mountain twice, it means that it must be pretty spectacular. There are reports out there that describe the general route for Mount Jimmy Simpson, and really it is technically an easy/moderate scramble, but working along the ledges probably requires moderate level route-finding. Apart from a few steps with steep drops and one or two moments of hands-on-rock, this is mostly a hike up.

Starting from Num-Ti-Jah Lodge (park around the back right next to the trailhead, not in the tourist parking area, to save yourself a little extra distance) the views begin with a bang, and pretty much stay great all day. There is no viewless tree-trudge for this trip! Pick a good day, because the views really are fantastic. If you get lucky, and there is no wind, the early morning reflections on Bow Lake are fantastic, today that didn’t work out for us, but 2 years ago, the lake was sublime.

Photo of a glass-calm Bow Lake in 2013:


Views towards Bow Glacier Falls, the edge of the Wapta Icefield and down to Bow Lake are great, and work as a good excuse to make plenty of stops as you climb up through the ledges.

Bow Glacier Falls:


Ledges:


The upper alpine bowl is filled with a lot of flowers, and great rocky landscapes, again this is a great place to sit and wonder over how lucky you are to be able to hike these routes. When many others pay a lot of money to take a coach trip and get 5 minutes at the lodge by the lake, I get to explore the wonderful landscape beyond them. I really am a lucky guy!

From the bowl there is a bit of a grind up loose scree, or if you time your trip just right, a nice snow bank to kick up. We found great snow for about 75% of the ascent here, which really did save on time and effort. But eventually we had to step off on to awkward scree. Thankfully we were done with it in 10 minutes, and on to some extremely nice, cushioned, low angle scree for a pleasant walk up to the col. On my first ascent (2013), I cut the corner here and aimed directly to the summit without reaching the col first, and from the summit I neglected to check out the immediate drop to the north. I have since seen a friend’s photos and knew that there was a lovely little surprise clinging to a scree bowl to the north of Jimmy Simpson, a small, creviced glacier and a wonderful iceberg-filled tarn. From this point to summit, it is all about Icefields overload. I took a summit pano that included; Bow Lake, Iceberg Lake, Bow Glacier, The Wapta Icefield, A wonderful pocket glacier below Mount Thompson, steep icefalls, Peyto Glacier, Caldron Lake, and Barbette Glacier, and of course there were the mountains, with Mount Baker looking imperious, and the east face of Mount Thompson filling centre-ground.

Mount Thompson and Portal Peak, with a lovely little glacier:


Bow Lake with Mount Hector centre, Bow, Bowcrow and Crowfoot Mts centre and left and Temple at right side on horizon:


Small glacier and tarn with icebergs in the lower foreground, with Peyto Glacier, Mount Baker and Caldron Lake above:


Pano towards the north:


Wapta Pano:


It was this view of Caldron Lake back in 2013 that had me interested in Caldron Peak:


Views to the north, I could see Corona Ridge, where I had been less than a week earlier, between (I think) Mount Weed and Mount Noyes:


We were going to make the loop across to Iceberg Lake, but didn’t think we’d give it justice at that time. I’ll save that for another trip.

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Well said. That's the feeling I get almost every time I'm out in the beautiful Canadian Rockies - it's a true privilege to be able to see all these natural wonders.

Great photos of a magnificent landscape! Thanks for sharing.

Yes. I am waiting for next bluebird, really crisp day for that one myself

Indeed - a fine outing with many beautiful pics to back it up. One of very few I'd consider repeating myself.

I can see why you elected to make a repeat trip. For this kind of spectacular area, I would go up and repeat a half dozen times.


Truly beautiful.


K

Hi there - I went up Jimmy Simpson in October 2014 and agree - it is truly a spectacular summit worth repeating and the bit of route finding along the way makes it a bit more interesting than usual. Actually I got somewhat lost on the way back to the Bow Glacier falls - getting up way straight forward but finding the correct path on the way down for me turned into a challenge. I had a few moments where I was a bit scared as I was totally off route - but I eventually got to where I needed to be. Definitely a trip that made me want to finally invest in a GPS so that I could re-trace my exact route up on the way back!