Climb: Door Jamb Mountain
Getting to the start: Park at the Jura Creek Trailhead. This parking lot has washrooms and a bigger capacity. Alternatively you can park directly at the base of Door Jamb Mountain a few hundred meters further East. The climb up Door Jamb Mountain starts as soon as you leave this smaller parking lot at the base.
Start: As soon as you leave the smaller parking lot at the base of Door Jamb
Finish: At the plateau on top of Door Jamb. See summit photo below.
The 2 parking options. The climb starts as soon as you leave parking option #2 on the map.
Door Jamb Mountain is one of those popular after-work hits for local Bow Valley runners. Quieter than the likes of Ha Ling or Lady Macdonald, it offers a solid distance/elevation gain ratio. Most hikers take between 2 and 3 hours for the roundtrip, but the fastest runners will take just over 40 minutes...!
Route-finding can prove to be a bit tricky, as there are infrequent trail markers and it’s easy to get sucked in too far to climber’s left.
There is a trail that is more obvious at the lower elevations, but it branches out a lot further up. You'll hit some scree that eventually transitions into a few fun limestone slabs. You will want to generally stay close to the top of ridge but stay just climber's left of it in order to avoid the steeper terrain.
The scrambling is easy to moderate and many scrambling sections can be easily bypassed on obvious beaten paths. Two hands are required a few times, but there are tons of sections with just friction-walking up slabs. A true mountain running skills test piece!
Two options to navigate the top slab. It is also possible to go around it by going hard right.
Getting back down: Hike back down the same way you came up. Staying descender's left closer to the ridge top leads to easier terrain the entire way down. The limestone slabs on the West aspects can easily be avoided by heading left on the descent.