Sheol mountain is one of those peaks which would probably see little or no activity if it weren't for its inclusion in the Scrambles book.

It's a strange peak in that it's the shoulder of a larger mountain (Haddo mountain) which involves climbing higher points along the ridge to summit.

Nonetheless, this was our objective for our day. We knew this peak had wicked views of the north face of Temple and since none of us had travelled into this area of Lake Louise, we thought it'd make a nice short objective.

My partners for the day were Yuji and Yuriko. There were no travel restrictions imposed on Paradise Valley this day.

After hiking along the Paradise Valley trail for about an hour, we finally caught a glimpse of the ascent gully.

Walking another 5 minutes from that viewpoint brought us to an open field which gave us easy access to the gully.

Here's a shot I took on the way down but it gives you an idea of the terrain down low. Lots of shattered rock but nothing too loose.

Here's Yuji and Yuriko taking a quick nap halfway up. Lake Annette can be seen at the base of Mt. Temple.

Here's a gloomy shot of Pinnacle mountain (left) and Eiffel peak (right). The Grand Sentinel can be seen below Pinnacle peak.

Shortly after I took this picture, we were caught in a rainshower which lasted maybe 15 minutes.

Here's another shot of the terrain which was taken during our descent.

Less scree but more scrambling.

Here's another shot of the terrain as we close in on the ridge.

I was surprised at the amount of hands on scrambling this peak had offered but with that being said, there was always an alternate route to the climbers left which offered an easier way up.

Upon reaching the top of the ridge, we were greeted by this interesting slab of rock.

We found a lot of interesting rocks along the ridge - some of which contained crystals and gold specks. Yuriko was tempted to take some home so I told her to go ahead... at the risk of having me blackmail her in front of the parks office. She decided to take photos instead.

Here's the final ridge to Eiffel peak. We came across some narrow sections along the ridge but there was always an easier trail the the left or right.

Finally, here's the view of Mt. Temple from the summit of Sheol.

The register indicated that an average of 4 parties had made the summit each year. The first summit was back in 1993 which makes this the oldest register I've seen since I started scrambling in the Rockies.

Here's a view of Haddo peak and the Haddo glacier. The normal ascent route is up over Aberdeen or straight up this glacier from the Mt. Fairview side.

The return trip was pretty tedious. The shattered rock was fairly solid on the way up but since it hardly moved on the way down, it made it pretty tiring on the knees.

After returning to the trail, we came across no less than four porcupines. They didn't seem to care about us humans and didn't even make an effort to move away until we got within a few meters of them.

Finally, it was time to retreive our Heinekens from Paradise creek. The beers were ice cold and gave us a light buzz as we made the long plod back to the car.

We ended the day with an Outpost burger at the Outpost pub. A great end to a great day in the mountains.