Summit Elevation (m): 2213
Trip Date: Sunday, May 6, 2018
Elevation Gain (m): 725
Round Trip Time (hr): 5.5
Total Trip Distance (km): 11.8
Quick ‘n Dirty Rating: Class 2 – you fall, you sprain your wrist
Difficulty Notes: There is some very easy scrambling on the upper route – most of it avoidable. This is mainly a hike.
Technical Rating: OT4; YDS (Hiking)
GPS Track: Gaia
Map: Google Maps
Hanneke had a rare opportunity to join me for a hike on Sunday, May 6th 2018 so I figured I should take advantage of that. I was determined not to make her wade through the knee deep snow drifts that I kept ending up in over the past few weeks and decided that surely Stony Ridge in the Highwood area of Kananaskis would be dry by now? Yeah…The past few weeks have seen me drive past Black Diamond and Longview a few times, including a solo jaunt up Three Cairns, Hell’s Ridge and Mount Mann. Looking over towards Junction Hill and Bull Creek Hills, that area seemed pretty dry so I figured I’d give Stony Ridge a shot. The bonus was that I also hadn’t had any ticks from this area yet – sort of surprising.
The drive up to the trailhead was, as expected, beautiful and quiet. Hann commented more than once how there was nobody else around. Indeed, this area of the Rockies sees far fewer visitors than around Kananaskis Village and of course far less than Banff or Lake Louise – one of the reasons I’m liking it more and more. We parked along hwy 541 just off a gated access road and started up the road towards a large clearing. The clearing must be some sort of Alberta Parks storage area, as there was a good number of discarded picnic tables and other campground detritus laying around. We hiked through the clearing and up valley, following an obvious trail through the forest.
Everything was going really well until we started encountering snow. Darn it. I’ve really been underestimating how much snow the forested areas of the front ranges have been holding this year! The snow wasn’t horrible, but it was a bit of a bummer considering how dry everything else around us was. Thankfully I knew that our route eventually crossed to the east side of the valley and would likely dry out. The trail ascended fairly consistently, with the amount of snow increasing as we went. Thank goodness someone else broke trail which saved our feet from getting wet first thing in the morning. Eventually we finally worked up towards a drier section of the trail where the forest thinned a bit and we started getting views back over towards the southern Highwood area. The weather was gorgeous, birds were chirping and the smell of Spring was wafting through the air. It was a good day.
After reaching the first high point / open area we noticed that our route once again looked very snowy. In order to avoid losing major height between the first high point and the ridge next to Junction Hill, the access road / trail traverses the eastern slopes of Junction Hill – which are, of course, among the last to melt off, especially as it’s largely treed for some reason. Again, thankfully someone else had recently broken trail. It looked to me like they were likely following a bear, since we saw very distinct bear tracks in the snow every once in a while. This was the worst section of the day because of all the snow – but it wasn’t difficult. Soon enough we traversed one last avalanche gully and were once again looking at mostly bare, grassy slopes to the second ridge.
After a slight height loss, we started ascending the dry south slopes of the second ridge, directly east of Junction Hill. From here the route no longer followed the road, which switchbacked very steeply up the eastern slopes of Junction Hill before petering out under the summit. We did, however, have a trail most of the remaining route – likely from the many ungulates in the area. As we navigated along the second ridge, our views over Cat Creek Hills and towards the High Rock Range were fabulous! This was unexpected, as Bob hadn’t really sold the views from Stony Ridge in his trip report that I’d read beforehand.
From the second ridge there was again, a slightly height loss (that we avoided on return) in order to attain a neighboring ridge to the east (climber’s right). This third ridge involved the only scree and the only easy scrambling of the day. I enjoyed this ridge the most, while it made Hann slightly nervous. We ascended to the ridge and followed it through a nice little gap before following a sheep track to it’s northern end from where we could finally see the fourth ridge and our summit.
We ascended to the open west side of the summit to some pretty sweet views all along the Continental Divide from the Highwood Pass in the north to the Crowsnest Pass to the south. Views were much better than I expected. Of course the true high point of Stony Ridge is buried in the trees so we didn’t linger there. After a nice lunch break at the top – in warm, almost windless weather, it was time to return. Descent was quick and easy. We continued to enjoy fantastic weather and conditions – not to mention scenery until we were back in the trees on the first ridge again. We did find a few ticks crawling around but this wasn’t a huge shocker considering we’d taken a few extended breaks on various grassy slopes.
Stony Ridge is never going to be a super popular outing, but I rather enjoyed it. Partly, I’m sure, it was due to the company as I love getting out with Hann. It’s a bit more engaging than some of the other ridges and hills in the Eyrie Gap area with several ridges, easy routefinding and scrambling and some great views.
For an early season hike, I highly recommend it – just expect snow and you won’t be disappointed while you’re wading through it.