Northover Ridge - Trip Report
Back in 2017, I completed the Northover Ridge loop with my dad as a part of our annual summer hiking festivities. While I was initially apprehensive (the trail was barely a noted hike, just marked as an unofficial route), it ended up being one of the loveliest and most memorable trips of my youth, still ranking in my top three backpacking trips.
Last summer, I had the opportunity to visit the magic again, but was forced to turn around due to crazy weather (snow, sleet, rain, storm!) at the first campground, and have been pining to go back ever since. Just today I got that chance!
On August 4-5 I completed the trip with my good friend Brandon, and had a wonderful time. Report below!
The Trail
The Northover Ridge trail is a 33ish km loop in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, Kananaskis Country. The climax of the trail is a stunning multi-kilometer ramble on the continental divide on an unofficial route that is not maintained by Alberta Parks—wowee! The trail is super strenuous, and while not really a scramble it is about as hands-on as a backpack would ever get with a few sketchy sections and a very narrow ridge crux that might dissuade backpackers with less experience.
Since I did the full trail in 2017, the indistinct sections have gotten much much clearer, though route-finding skills are absolutely necessary in some spots. All in all, it’s a really fun backpack that tests some outdoors skills without really pushing an experienced mountain user outside their comfort zone!
For a partner, I rang up old friend Brandon Gulstene (now mountain guide-extraordinaire at Mount Norquay), who blessedly had days off the exact time I managed to book some sites! It was very nice to be backpacking with someone with buckets of experience (and first aid training). After some hasty packing and planning, we were off to North Interlakes trailhead for a relatively relaxed start of 10:30 am on August 4.
Day 1—Trailhead to Aster Lake Campground (11.3 km)
After the rendezvous with Brandon at 10:30, we set off towards Aster Lake a little after 11 at a brisk pace. Though the air was pretty smoky, we were hopeful that a weather window we saw in the forecasts would open up the next day, when we’d be at the crux on the ridge. Despite the cloud and smoke, the trail afforded some lovely views over Upper Kananaskis Lake to the surrounding beautiful peaks. The trail was pretty busy as we expected, and before long we arrived at the Aster Lake turnoff.
Technically, the section up to Aster is not a ‘trail’, rather a ‘route’, meaning it does not receive regular maintenance and is not advertised in most park maps. In 2017, the junction was not signed and we spent a good 25 minutes looking for a tiny piece of flagging in a tree that would mark the junction. Now, however, AB Parks has put up a signed junction with an accompanying warning against travelling into the backcountry unprepared—a welcome addition. Furthermore, they had cut some recent deadfall in the forest. Woot!
From the junction, the trail climbs through dense forest past Hidden Lake (not so hidden these days, though the lake is a product of the unusual geology in the area and will intermittently disappear based off of the seasonal water level—plus, it has no outlet and drains underground to a spring by Upper Kananaskis Lake) towards Fossil Falls. This is perhaps the most hemmed-in and claustrophobic part of the trail, and we were making buckets of noise due to a bear warning in the area.
Soon, the trail broke the forest and began a steep (holy shit) climb up scree slopes beneath Mount Sarrail. The weather was holding, with only a few light rain drops here and there. Usually, the trail crosses a snow bridge near the top of the slope, but I assume the massive heatwave we got a few weeks ago totally did it in, and the crossing lay in heaps in front of us— a quick climbing move along the side replaced the sometimes sketchy crossing. Just above, we tackled the cliffband (the only somewhat involved part of the route, a hands-on haul-up over a small ledge) and were clear of the worst of the day!
After passing the cliff band, we entered the upper sparse forests of Foch Creek below Aster Lake. The geology is really cool here, with long horizontal fault lines dominating the landscape, often filled with babbling creeks. The wildflowers were tremendously beautiful, just multicolored carpets as far as the eyes could see. Despite this, it felt a little hemmed in with the smoke, low clouds, and trees—we were back to making tons of noise for an area that’s infamous for its numerous bear sightings.
After a surprisingly long plod through the forest, we finally arrived at Aster Lake Campground, a very pleasant and open site beside Aster Creek. It was here almost exactly a year ago that I was pelted and smashed by rain/ snow, so a grumbly but rain-free sky was already an improvement!
After quickly setting up camp, we chilled and ate dinner by the glorious Aster Lake. The view across the water to Warrior Mountain has to be one of my all time favourite vistas in the Rockies, and that night it did not disappoint. In fact, as we sat and ate, patches of blue broke out amongst the clouds and smoke—yessir!! Before we left for sleep, the sky was two-thirds blue. This was an excellent sign for tomorrow, where we’d need nothing short of perfect weather to justify an ascent to the summit. After a rehydrated and filling meal, we retired to our sleeping bags for a fairly restless and cold sleep.
Day 2—(North)over and out!
We definitely woke up when our alarms went off at 6am…
At any rate, we crawled out over our mesh haven at 7am to the brisk morning air and were mercifully fed and on our merry way by 8:25. Why the need for an early start? We had a long day ahead with a ton of elevation to gain, and every meter we did in the cool morning would save energy and water we’d have to otherwise burn through. Luckily, almost all of our morning was gentle and breezy.
We set off around Aster Lake, where the trail sharply contours around the shoreline before simply vanishing in gravel flats some time beyond. I remember the confusion in 2017 as we searched for a track or cairns, until we were saved by our instincts of just pointing forward and bashing up the slope—we followed in those footsteps and blasted forward, eventually coming to a hazy but defined path halfway up the slope. This was an improvement from 2017!
From there, we contoured right up a gully and crossed into BC, and were faced down by another equally long and tedious scree climb to summit the ridge. Fortunately, from here our views would only open up and we caught precious glances to the massive Mount King George and Royal Group to our west, as well as the increasingly dominant fang of Mount Joffre behind us. After a good 1-1.5 hours of scree-bashing, we finally summitted the ridge! From there, we came to the highlight of our trip.
The Ridge
Northover Ridge itself is a walk on the spine of the continent—the ridge follows the Great Divide, both the dividing line between BC and Alberta, and the dividing line between the Pacific and Atlantic drainages. It is spectacular, and fairly nerve-wracking sometimes; on both sides there are precipitous drops—one to the maw of the Northover Glacier, another to several hundred vertical feet of sheer scree and cliffs. This is why a weather window is vital—there is no egress from the ridge. Once you’re on top, the closest access to a low point or tree line is the way you came, and even then won’t be closer than a handful of kilometers.
Lucky for us, we got an immaculately clear day, all things being equal. We could see way down a few thousand feet into the depths of the Palliser River, across the icy mass of the Northover Glacier, and to no fewer than three 11,000ers (Joffre, King George, and Sir Douglas to the north). I always love the feeling of staring down into a wild river valley that sees very few human feet each year, imagining the wildlife and unknown tracks beyond. Despite the smoke, we could see well into BC where logging roads criss-cross the landscape, as well as survey many of the more remote K-Country peaks.
We made our way across the crux with generally no problem, though the narrowness and sheer drop on both sides does make you think about where to put your feet! Again, it’s no worse than any moderate scrambling, but may give a backcountry user carrying a 30 lb pack some pause. From there, it was a sloggy scree descent towards the col with Onslow/ Defender Mountains, and our hour in the heavens was at an end.
The descent off the ridge to Three Isle Lake is perhaps the strongest argument for doing the loop our way (clockwise). It is the nastiest, least grippy, most slippy section of backpacking trail you’ll ever lay boots on—I can’t imagine coming up it, going down was bad enough! By now, the heat had really started up, and was radiating off of the dry rocks back at us. It took a good 40 minutes or so to flail down the scree before we reached the valley bottom and creek leading to Three Isle Lake.
Much to our chagrin, we passed two sets of women who were trail running the entire thing in a day…. what?? A very impressive and athletic feat, to be sure, and not one I’d like to partake in. By now, it was HOT in the valley, and we meandered along the wet bushy flats before slumping onto the rocky shores of Three Isle Lake for a snack break…
And by snack break, I mean an hour long rest while we washed our feet, got water, ate, and chatted. It seemed like a waste of time perhaps, but we were BLAZING trail despite the heat/ climbing—it was only around noon and we were effectively over halfway done the day. So we took our time and got comfortable, and when we slung our heavy packs back on both of us felt 1000% better. The advantages of starting early!
Over the last day and a half, Brandon and I had conspired to finish one day early; normally, one would camp at Aster Lake and then Three Isle, however we were both keen to get home and had already burned through the main scenic draws of the hike, and we resolved to polish of the remaining 11 km that day, too! Even though it was double the distance, by far the majority of the work had been done in the huge climbs in the morning, so we were confident we’d be able to get back to the car and not explode.
Immediately after Three Isle Lake on the descent trail there is a massive headwall that almost immediately loses a few hundred meters more in elevation; I had done this headwall before with my dad, but forgot how steep it was! It felt like an endless knee-bash down and down, and the heat was only getting worse. By the time we cleared the headwall, I swear it felt like it was above 30 degrees. What the HELL?? This was making is feel waaaay worse than the elevation gain in the morning;—our only mercy was dipping our hats in creeks when we came upon them to cool off our heads.
Despite this, we continued at a blazing pace and passing Forks Campground quickly to enter a lovely open forested space along the Upper Kananaskis River, before eventually reconnecting with what I believe is an old logging road that took us back to our cars. The last four or so kilometers were certainly a nasty slog, but hey, that’s every backpack! We treated ourselves to some goodies at the Boulton Creek Trading Post and split ways after a very successful trip to the mountains :)
Wrapping up
Well, there it is! I had a really awesome time finishing this trip again, and it felt especially sweet to get such a clear ridge walk after both the horrible smoke this summer and the aborted attempt at this hike last year. And it was great to hike with Brandon! I really appreciate someone who can set the pace and route find as well as he does.
This may be my last big trip for the summer, but I’ll try and wrangle another backpack in if I can before I head back to TO—I hope you’re enjoying this little break from the music! Don’t worry, lots of musical things in the works for September =)
Thanks for reading <3
