Mount Cory, Banff National Park, Canada, April 18, 2010
There is only one way to describe the descent from Mount Cory- brutal.
Mike and Caro taking a breather!
Mount Cory is a distinctive mountain just outside of the Banff townsite. There is a very popular hike that goes over Cory Pass to the east of the summit, then loops around Mount Edith. Of course, this is far too traditional for the likes of my friends, Joey and Caro and the BF, so we decided to attempt to scramble to the summit of Cory via a south-west ridge. This is rather simple- you park on 1A at a paved turnout, and walk up. Straight up. For a long time.
Eventually we came out onto a saddle between two high points, carpeted with alpine grass and lichen. With a shock, we recognized Castle Mountain in the distance as we came over the pass! At this point, Caro and I had had enough climbing so we laid in the warm sun while the boys investigated. We weren’t sure which way the summit was, right or left- so they climbed the rise to our left to get a better vantage. Turns out, the summit was the other way, to the right (East), and still a LONG way off. We were probably only halfway! Discouraged and sleepy from the sun, we decided to simply turn around- the views from the pass were so rewarding, we weren’t so motivated to try for the summit, although it would have been fairly straightforward.
At our pass, looking north-west.
This is where all of that ascending became DESCENDING. Now there are 3 types of muscle contractions (here is the sport scientist in me coming out.) The first is concentric, where the muscle is shortening, like in the “up” phase of a bicep curl. The second is isometric, where the muscle is contracting but not changing in length, like pushing into a wall or holding a weight stationary. The third type, eccentric, occurs when the muscle is contracting but lengthening at the same time, like the down phase of the bicep curl. It is eccentric contractions that result in delayed onset muscle soreness or “DOMS”- and durning downhill hiking, your quadriceps are constantly contracting eccentrically. I go into all of this because after this descent, I had the WORST case of DOMS in my life! I seriously couldn’t walk two days after this hike, and the soreness lasted for 5 days. OUCH.
Ah, well, I guess that’s what I get for making this the first hard hike of the year! This is why it’s just as important to train on downhills as it is uphills. As for the hike, it was beautiful and scienic the whole way, and a great day out with friends, but definitely not a walk in the park.
