EEOR (East End of Rundle)

Elevation: 2590 m
Elevation Gain: 900 m
The name EEOR (derived as an acronym for East End of Rundle) is likely a reference to the melancholy donkey of Winnie the Pooh fame. The peak itself is the most south-easterly outlier of the 12 km long Mount Rundle massif. Reverend Robert Rundle was a missionary who spent time with the Cree and Assiniboine people in the Banff area from 1840 to 1848, during which time he learned their language and became heavily involved in their culture. Impressed by his work, John Palliser named Mount Rundle in honor of the Reverend in 1858.
My Ascents:
July 20 2024, June 30 2012, July 14 2011, June 25 2011, May 24 2010, June 22 2008, July 15 2007
Trailhead: Goat Creek Parking Lot
GPS Track: EEOR (East End of Rundle)

For the last couple of years, I’ve watched with great pride as my 8-year-old daughter Mera tackled hikes big and small with a smile on her face. 😁 As an avid hiker, scrambler, and occasional mountaineer, it’s amazing to see your daughter developing a shared passion for peaks. Mera genuinely loves exploring her natural surroundings and takes great pride in each and every summit that she reaches; Sounds like someone I know! 😂

After watching Mera breeze up (and down) some bigger “hands-in-pocket” hikes (like Prairie Mountain and Mount St. Piran), her Mom (an able mountain goat 🐐 in her own right) suggested that it was time for Mera to tackle something more challenging and engaging. To that end, Brianne volunteered to watch our 2 littler hikers so that I could introduce Mera to the wonderful world of hands-on scrambling. When we told her that Daddy was going to take her on a bigger mountain, she was JUBILANT. Now, we just had to find a suitable first scramble for her.

After some thought, I decided that EEOR would be an excellent candidate. Mera loves to “climb” things 🙉 (fences, trees, walls etc.), and I figured that EEOR’s abundant easy-to-moderate scrambling would be a hit. What I didn’t know was how she’d handle its equally abundant treadmill scree and sustained steep grade. To make matters more interesting, our chosen ascent day had a forecast high in the 30 – 35 C range. 🌡️☀️ While less than ideal, summer heat and unpleasant terrain are also a big part of scrambling, so it was time to see how Mera handled, the good (hands-on rock), the bad (treadmill scree) and the ugly (oppressive heat) that come along with my favorite pastime.

Leaving Calgary at 6:45 am in an attempt to beat the worst of the day’s heat, we made a quick pit stop to pick up Mera’s Grandpa (“Grumpo” Gord). Grumpo accompanied me on many of my earliest scrambles, so it was only fitting to have him along for Mera’s first such endeavor.

LEFT: Mera proudly poses at the Goat Creek trailhead with our objective EEOR behind her.
RIGHT: After walking back along the dirt road towards Canmore for a few minutes, we easily found the well-established EEOR trail just before the second set of powerline poles. Starting up, Mera was proud-as-a-peacock and all-smiles. 🦚😁

LEFT: After an easy first few minutes in the forest 🌲, the trail soon gained EEOR’s more rugged south ridge. Mera was excited to tackle this challenge, however, her youthful enthusiasm soon led to a small slip and a slightly skinned knee. 😥 After reinforcing the need to go slow and to be careful, she continued undeterred.
RIGHT: Mera gets her first small taste of hands-on scrambling in the early morning sun – plenty of both to come today! 🌞

LEFT: As the trail mercilessly gained elevation, the views east towards the Bow Valley, Whiteman’s Pond, Ha Ling and Mount Lawrence Grassi steadily improved. Notably, the exposure in this direction also increased commensurately with these views. 😬 As it did, I made sure that I was stride-for-stride beside Mera in case she lost her footing again. To my relief, she proceeded very thoughtfully and carefully! 🙂
RIGHT: About a quarter of the way up, we reached a small plateau and 75-year-old Grumpo helped himself to a rocky seat for a well-earned break. In 2017, he had a hip replacement and, at that time, I don’t think he ever thought he’d be able to “enjoy” outings like EEOR again, let alone with “young-ins” like Mera and I!

LEFT: Above the plateau, the trail briefly detoured to the climber’s right of the ridge crest along some mildly exposed ledges, which led back to the ridge crest in short order. Once again, this is not typical terrain for 8-year-olds (or 75-year-olds), so we carefully navigated these together as a group!
RIGHT: Above the ledges the ridge broadened and became a scree-filled face, which provided the cardio challenge of the day. Surprisingly, Mera had no problem with this lengthy section of loose scree and cement-hard dry dirt – I’m not sure that Grumpo felt the same, however! 😂 Nevertheless, we all persisted and watched as many less-prepared 20-somethings struggled. One young lady in particular appeared to learn why a mini-skirt and running shoes are a poor choice on this terrain and abandoned her attempt with a host of minor cuts on her behind!

While there was plenty of people-watching to be had on EEOR, there was much less wildlife to see on the busy trail: only this motley looking ewe (who Mera attempted to communicate with using the age-old sheep code “Baa Ram Ewe, Baa Ram Ewe”). 🐏😂

After persisting through the miserable scree, we reached the much-more-pleasant alpine meadow that sits just below EEOR’s scrambly summit block.

This wildflower-filled meadow provided a perfect spot to stop for a rest and a snack before the final summit push. 🌼🌻💐

A hazy Spray Valley panorama from EEOR’s sub-summit meadow. Click to see larger.

A closer look at the abundant wildflowers.

Mera and Grumpo enjoying their mid-meadow lunch, with the day’s biggest challenge directly behind them…

A closer look at EEOR’s twin summits (left and right) and the two routes that provide access to them:
1. A gully and down-sloping ledges at center left.
2. The airier right-hand skyline ridge.

While the right-hand skyline ridge used to be the ascent line of choice on EEOR, most parties now scramble up the less exposed gully to its left. Indeed, the trail below the gully looked like a veritable Hilary Step while we finished up our lunch in the meadow! These crowds (and their potential for kicking rocks on those below them – ie: us) gave me pause 😬, but we decided that this route would probably be more kid/senior-friendly for Mera and Grumpo, respectively.

LEFT: After finishing our snack, we started up once more, stopping only briefly to cool down at a small but persistent snow patch below the crux. Who doesn’t like making “snow angels” on a 35 C summer day! ❄️👼
RIGHT: While Mera loved playing in the snow, Grandpa had a much more practical use for it and took advantage of the opportunity to “ice” his achy hip.

With the rocky crux at hand, Mera donned her Mom’s climbing helmet (and promptly used her hat to dump cooling snow all over it). 😂 As a note, anyone attempting EEOR should really have a helmet given the sheer number of rock-kicking novices that flock to this peak. Given the average level of preparedness that we witnessed, however, it was not surprising that we were the only ones who bothered to bring brain-buckets… 😔

LEFT: A pair of lightly equipped scramblers make their way down the gully ahead of us. About halfway up, this rock band steepens and becomes overhanging and impassable for mere mortals. At this point, the route takes a hard right turn and follows a series of down-sloping ledges diagonally up towards the summit ridge.
RIGHT: Mera, READY TO ROCK, and excited to be tackling EEOR’s hands-on crux rock band at last! Eagle-eyed readers may also be able to spot a party of 3 high above her. This trio was badly off-route and seemed committed to a direct descent of the overhanging terrain below them. After dodging a number of rocks that they carelessly dislodged, I “nicely” called up to ask if they were climbers. When they replied in the negative, I “suggested” that they climb back up to the ridge to re-gain the proper descent route, lest they hurt themselves or someone else. Fortunately, they heeded this advice. About 10-minutes after the rock downpour ceased, we exchanged a pleasant “hello” on the proper ledge as they descended and we climbed up. This is a useful case study for new scramblers: don’t descend terrain that you’re not familiar with, and if you think you’re off-route, go back up and correct your mistake instead of (literally) doubling down. More on this lesson later…

After ascending the blocky steps in the gully with relative ease, Mera happily started up the down-sloping ledge which breaks through EEOR’s sub-summit ramparts.

LEFT and RIGHT: Grumpo makes his way along the ledge as well (albeit with less of a smile on his face than Mera had)! Above the crux, a short trail through the scree was all that separated us from EEOR’s twin summits!

Was there ever any doubt?! 75-year-old Grumpo takes the final blocky step up onto EEOR’s more easterly summit, with the town of Canmore 1,280 vertical meters below.

A VERY proud Papa with his amazing little mountain goat, Mera, atop her first scramble on a HOT and HAZY afternoon. 😁🐐🥰

EEOR’s summit provides outstanding panoramic views of Canmore and the Bow Valley (even as the summer smoke creeps back into our lives). Click to see larger.

Looking north across the Bow Valley towards Mount Charles Stewart (center) and its more popular southern peak.

A surreally smoky panorama south and east towards Goat Pond and the Spray Valley. Click to see larger.

A host of Canmore icons poking through the haze, including distant Mount Collembola, Faith, Hope and Charity Peaks (the Three Sisters), distant Mount Lougheed, Mount Lawrence Grassi and nearby Ha Ling Peak.

The Mount Rundle Massif is so large that it fills the entire panorama to the north and west of EEOR. Click to see larger. The next high point along the 12-km-long ridge is listed as EEOR’s summit by Alan Kane, however, Gillean Daffern calls our more easterly point the summit. Since it’s the “East End”, and not a “true” summit, it doesn’t really matter anyways and we elected to stay on the more scenic Daffern “summit” (even though Mera was eager to explore both).

A closer look at Mount Rundle’s monstrous true summit (or is it?)…

Three generations of happy SCRAMBLERS atop EEOR!

Everything that the smoke touches is your kingdom Miss Mera!

LEFT: After surveying “her kingdom” for an enjoyable 30 minutes, it was time to descend and Mera was happy to show Grumpo the way back down along the crux ledge.
RIGHT: Looking down the ledge (as a party of scramblers inexplicably ascend much less solid terrain immediately below it).

LEFT: Mera shows off her mountain goat skills on the crux descent (while Grumpo holds on for dear life – he may not have earned many “style points” here, but he made it)!
RIGHT: The reward for a crux-well-descended: a summer snow patch party!!! 🎉❄️

LEFT: After descending past the snow and the lovely meadow, Mera led Grumpo down a long section of loose scree and concrete-hard, dry dirt. On this section, Mera quickly learned the value of hiking poles (a lesson that many of the novice scramblers on EEOR would be wise to heed). According to Mera, the trick to descending this section was to “think and act like a mountain goat.” To that end, Mera used her poles as forelimbs and happily “Baa-ed” as she descended. In all seriousness, poles are an essential tool for serious scramblers as they allow you to maintain more contact with the steep ground, reducing the likelihood of a slip and taking a significant burden off knees and backs. I wish I’d started to use mine when I was young like Mera!
RIGHT: Mera takes the “think and act like a goat” thing to a whole new level… 🐐🤣

LEFT: As we started our descent down the south ridge (below the scree), we quickly found ourselves off-route on a “sucker trail” that was descending steeply to Goat Creek. This has happened to me before on EEOR, where a myriad of “sucker trails” have been created and maintained by novices. Recognizing that we were off-route, we navigated some terrain that was harder than that required on the main path to regain the proper route. Eventually, we even convinced Grumpo to join us after he fell prey to the siren song of the sucker trail. 😝 Shortly after regaining the proper route on the south ridge, we heard a helicopter operating nearby. As we peered over the ridge to investigate, we bore witness to a long-line rescue. 🚁
RIGHT: The rescue helicopter lowers a terrifyingly long-line down towards a stranded scrambler. I’m not 100% sure what happened here but am willing to wager that this person got similarly off-route and doubled down on their error by continuing down into unknown terrain. Anyone who veers off EEOR’s south ridge onto its east face will soon discover increasingly complex terrain, which is punctuated by sheer cliffs that are the site of a number of rock-climbing routes. Even the climbers don’t descend these and this poor cliffed-out soul wasn’t going to either. After a dangling rescuer attached the long line, this person was whisked back down to the Goat Creek Parking lot. While their descent was rapid, it did not look like fun. If it was me on that line, I think I’d need a clean pair of clean undies for after…

Mera and Grumpo continue down the scrambly south ridge. One the way up, this terrain is fun, but the fact that it nearly persists the whole way down eventually grew tiresome (particularly as the rocks baked in the 35 C sun, turning this part of the route into an alpine oven). 🥵

LEFT: At long last, the trail veered east into the forest and the terrain became much easier as it passed a series of large boulders. On ascent, Mera REALLY wanted to scramble up these but I told her to save her energy because EEOR is a big mountain. “If you still have energy to climb those boulders on the way down, you can” I said… 😂
RIGHT: Back on the road at last! We may not have set any land-speed records on EEOR, but it was amazing to safely get three generations of our family up and down EEOR. While Mera looks pretty tuckered in this photo, her energy levels perked right back up when we stopped in Canmore to celebrate her first scramble with an ice-cold Blizzard at the local Dairy Queen! 🍦 Look at that, another thing that Mera and I have in common: a shared love of scrambles and post-scramble ice cream! 😏😂

Congratulations Mera on your first scramble! 🥳❤️ Daddy can’t wait to take you out again (and again and again, hopefully)!