"Emerald - Top Hat - CarMar Peaks traverse abandoned attempt on Mount Marpole (see below) 19.9km with 1,980m gain in 8:35hrs return Emerald - Top Hat traverse is done all the time and tons of reports on it. As a side note, was pleasantly surprised with some fun scrambling by Emerald's summit. Was hoping to extend the route to Mt Marpole on which not much information. Linking Top Hat to CarMar (in Jones' book and Rick Collier's TR; or "South Marpole" in another TR) is fairly straightforward side-hilling and slog if staying lower, or some interesting and exposed ledges when staying higher (not sure I'd recommend to follow my GPS track there). Once back to a ridge, pretty solid and nice easy scramble. Jones, I assume based on Collier's report from 1990, marked Marpole SW ridge as class 4, i.e. difficult scrambling. Got some doubts of it looking from CarMar (which is quite close): there are some ugly notches on the first hump on the ridge and Marpole's summit block looks almost like an overhanding slab. While it's definitely not obvious and deceiving from a distance but soloing without a rope I didn't want to get into such [unknown] terrain. Another possibility, the rid..." — alexp • Aug 25, 2020

"Our guide for Athabasca got injured and wasn't able to find someone short notice to take us, so we thought about doing Bosworth. Then we heard that it had too much snow and we couldn't see it in the morning fog anyways, so we went with the back-up plan to our back-up - Emerald Peak. I really enjoyed this one. It's a long drive for a shorter scramble, but it was a pretty decent scramble at the end and offered us some views of the falls, some lakes and gorgeous mountains all around us. This is one I'd redo for sure, and I'd love to spend a few hours at Hamilton Lake." — leigh-annewebster • Jul 17, 2020

"Snow, cloud, and low visibility all around us but Emerald remained clear and even in the sun until we summitted and then required a hasty depature as the snow arrived. Sweet 1250m descent with some fantastic powder on the upper half. And we had it all to ourselves! Skied off the summit." — alexjoseph • Feb 23, 2020

"Whiteout on Emerald Peak. Took the wrong way to gain the summit ridge and ended up having to do a bit of fun scrambling. A bit tricky up there in the whiteout, had the probe out poking around a bit. Ski down was pretty good until about half way, then bad. " — jakefinnan • Apr 13, 2019

"a fantastic trip that almost didn't happen. It was -37 C (-45 C with wind) when we left Calgary. - 20 C at the Emerald Lake parking lot. As we started going up, things warmed up rapidly due to an inversion. We spent most of the day at temperatures closer to -12 C. Blue bird skies made the views incredible." — apfelstrudel • Feb 10, 2019

"Was really wanting Carnarvon, but being early season, not being able to see the upper part, and the off and on rain, I decided to just do Emerald Peak. Started out by heading up to Hamilton Lake on the trail. The trail has a good amount of gain. Hamilton lake was almost snow/ice free. Went up Emerald Peak. The rock was wet so I had to exercise some caution and go around some big tilted blocks (as opposed to just walk over them). The ridge offered good scrambling to get to the summit. Explored the ridge to the east of Emerald Peak and then went down the avi slope to Emerald Lake." — BertB • Jul 7, 2018