This was my first time hiking up Ha Ling. I had purposely pushed it off because I knew from talking to many people that it is a year round peak that can be done in virtually all weather conditions, minus the ever potentially deadly thunderstorm, as such this is often many people's first real peak. Thankfully the Canadian Rockies don't see many thunderstorms in October and since Halloween fell on a Saturday and was forecast to be a great day weatherwise a group of 8 of us from the University of Calgary Outdoor Adventurers Group decided to schedule an outing.
Ha Ling is located behind Canmore Alberta, on Spray Lakes Road. To access the trail head you drive past the Canmore Nordic Centre and continue along Spray Lakes Road until you reach the Goat Creek parking lot. This parking lot is also the traditional starting point for scrambling the East end of Rundle as well as Lawrence Grassi, both peaks bookend Ha Ling.
The Ha Ling trail starts on a very distinct forest trail and quickly starts switch backing the backside of the mountain.
For more information on this hike, please click here.
