This chance to do it came as a surprise, as Hedd-wyn called me last minute to accompany him and his daughter Caitlin. She had done rock climbing, but had no alpine experience, so we belayed some of the upper part of the ridge, with some short roping. We wore tshirts all the way to the summit, which was incredible... the only thing obscuring our views was the forest fire smoke that had rolled in from the US. After a leisurely hour at the summit, we couldn't postpone our descent further and begun carefully making our way down. The descent took us longer than the ascent due to the loose nature of the rock, but we had nowhere to rush. Caitlin proved strong as she had no trouble with the exposure, it being so new to her. Happy to be back down, we ate dinner and played cards before rolling into bed early for a good night's sleep. The next day we made our way down to Assiniboine Lodge at Lake Magog and took a helicopter out. I felt pretty spoiled taking a helicopter to get there, but I couldn't turn down Hedd-wyn's offer. Having also done the full circuit hike in 2003, I knew it was... well, less than pleasant.

	Caitlin and Hedd-wyn chilling while we wait for the helicopter	our helicopter that took us to Lake Magog	a strange beetle in the parking lot

	neat aerial views	a glimpse of Assiniboine's East Face with our route being the right skyline	Assiniboine's East Face

		Hedd-wyn and Caitlin enjoying the helicopter ride. So much better than slogging up Bryant creek!	we got uncomfortably close to these walls

	just landed in the meadow!	Assiniboine seen from helicopter pad	Assiniboine seen from Lake Magog where we enjoyed lunch

	me enjoying lunch at the lake	ok.. time to start hiking	the Gmoser Highway approach

	Lake Magog seen from Gmoser Highway	Caitlin enjoying the easy trail before getting into the headwall	How do we get across this? Carefully...

	Caitlin enjoying the exposure	Walk slowly and carefully...	negotiating a small patch of snow

	ancient rap station		have to scramble through this

	ok.. still a while to go

		crossing the waterfall	Caitlin thinking "Do I have to get wet?"

	small cliff band	last obstacle on the headwall!

	a closer view of our objective	going up the snow slope toward the Hind Hut

	Hedd-wyn slogging up	the Hind Hut	Mt Assiniboine

	Mt Stewart?	Mt Assiniboine with the Hind Hut in the foreground	me posing with Assiniboine in the background

		the world class shitter next to the hut	can't get enough of it

	sunset	sunrise on the base of the route, with lots of smoke in the air making it pretty	smokey sunrise

	most of the ridge is low angle	a guided party scrambling ahead of us	Caitlin enjoying the sunrise

		early morning views	Smoke!

	small food break	the 3 of us on the enjoyable upper ridge	Larry Stanier and Lila (sp?) with their group

	We let Larry go ahead	steep scrambling	the spectacular drop down the East Face

	the ridge steepens	Me leading on the ridge	on the ridge

	Caitlin and Hedd-wyn climbing with the spectacular glacier and Lake Magog	Nice position on the ridge

	the East Face	traversing to the higher south summit	the last steep portion of the ridge

	almost at the top	summit shot	aww

	big group on the summit		the drop down the East Face

	enough chilling out, time to go down!	rappelling a step in the ridge	me doing a sitting belay behind a block

	Descending the ridge with Lake Magog in the background

			Caitlin going down the Gmoser Highway on the following day

	Lake Magog again... almost down!		Last view of it before we leave!