Nihahi Ridge Traverse
Completed when dry, possible with some snow. There are a few third class scrambling sections to get up to the ridge (South Peak) and then once on the ridge. There is only one short, exposed section of 3.5/5 and it is not difficult, unless you want to walk on the ridge for the whole time, then that’s another story. Mild bushwalking when exiting from the north peak (the route goes from south to north). This is a point to point scramble, so two cars are needed. If you are planning to do this trip solo, you would add an extra 10km walk/run on the gravel highway or down Nihahi Creek, if you insist on doing it solo, you could stash your bike at the exit and have an enjoyable ride back to your car. This trip is described in Alan Kane’s Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies, and is rated as moderate.
Nihahi Ridge could be the longest straight line of a ridge that you’ll ever see. It is situated at the very front of the front ranges of Kananaskis, and is the first significant rock (other than Moose Mountain) that you can see guarding the Rocky Mountains. From end to end, it clocks in at just over 8 km for the straight part alone! The ridge then curls and continues to another identical height peak called Compression Ridge. Nihahi apparently means rocky in the native Stoney Nakoda tongue, which is a fitting name for this very long “rocky ridge”, which is exactly the translation of the name.
The parking lot is essentially situated right where Highway 66 turns to gravel. Instead of continuing on the gravel, take a left and continue past the Forgetmenot Pond parking, then, the parking should be on the left (before the campground). The parking lot doesn’t really have an official name on google maps and apple maps, so the easiest thing would be to use our handy directions feature above. This lot is about a 25 minute drive from Bragg Creek and a 1:00 hour drive from the Calgary city limits (Highway 1 limits). To place your other car or bike, drive up Powderface Trail for about 15 minutes or 9.5km to the Powderface Parking area.
This route describes the entire Nihahi Ridge traverse, the other possible trips are just smaller sections of this. From the parking lot, begin walking southwest on either the Little Elbow Trail or the Little Elbow Campground Access Road. Continue straight past the trailhead (gate), and walk for about 0.5 km, disregarding the first right turn, then take the second right on to the Nihahi Ridge trail. Follow the good trail up for a ways until you begin to leave the trees. You then have the option to scramble up the ridge (for more views) to the left or to continue on the trail. Our route continued on the trail until a short Class III scrambling section must be overcome, which led to easier terrain to the ridge crest. From this point, continue by walking on the ridge crest (if you want some excitement) or directly to its left (if you don’t really like exposure). There are a couple of Class III downclimbs along the way, and you must use your judgment on how to overcome them. Some tricky sections may be avoided, but it’s generally easier to stick close to the ridge crest. After you start getting sick of the bumps (there’s around 8 significant ones in total), you will likely have the last three large ones remaining. The terrain is also foreshortened, especially on the last slog to the true summit, but is largely easy. Once you reach the summit, there are many options for descent, including: going back to Nihahi creek, going to the Compression Ridge Col, and heading down the north ridge. This route describes the north ridge option. Scramble down a few short cliff bands (Class III) finding the easiest way down. After that, it is mostly a walk on shale and scree. Once you get close to the trees, instead of turning right and where your GPS map is taking you, take a left and scree run down an enjoyable gully to the valley below. From there, find your way to the Compression Ridge route, sticking to as much grass and rock as possible. After coming around the northernmost part of the ridge that you were originally on, continue in the general direction of down (east) until the point where you may or may not find a trail leading out. Try to stick close to the Compression Ridge route on your map and you should be alright. Walk out on a trail back to your conveniently placed car or bike. Note that the Gaia GPS route for this trip is somewhat accurate, but not exact.
I’m not sure exactly who’s idea this was, but here we were doing Nihahi Ridge once again. It’s just that this time we wouldn’t have to bushwack and route find in both directions.
This cow on Powderface Trail can see your soul as you’re driving. She can even see yours too as you’re reading this.
We started off a bit late at 9:30 am walking down the campground road, since had forgotten that it would take an extra half an hour of driving to drop the other car off. Too bad for us I guess. As we walked down the campground road, the approach already felt way too long, so I was glad that we wouldn’t have to go back the same way. We passed the gate and walked for a bit more up to our turn off, where the grind would begin. It really wasn’t as tough as I remembered it being from about five years before.
Looking over at the Elbow Loop peaks, this is roughly where you could start gaining the ridge (recommended), but we continued over to the right.
Looking down the Little Elbow River valley towards some Highway 40 peaks. Yes, they are that close. Mount Blane and The Blade (just right of center) almost look like Mount Assiniboine and Lunette Peak.
We then found the 3rd class step to get us up to the ridge (which we found quite challenging) and scrambled up the easy stuff (again way easier than I remembered from years ago) to get to the first high point of the ridge. Looking back on it, we probably should’ve just stuck to the ridge the whole way instead of going around and doing the 3rd class step, but anyways, it was good fun.
Ferris makes his way up the ridge after the first bump which is the actually south "summit". Scree trails leading to the ridge are visible at left.
If you get lost on the next 7-8 km ridge, then I don’t know why you’re here. The next long bit is super straightforward, ya just stick to the ridge and if it gets scary then find a way around it or down it.
The Elbow Loop peaks always catch my attention. A while back we traversed all four of ‘em for what is probably the biggest day that I’ve ever done.
The first part of the ridge is quite scenic.
Great ridgewalking if you’re not afraid of the exposure.
Absolutely loving it.
There’s a bit of easy slab scrambling.
And then more.
And more.
We had already made it a fair distance, but nothing close to the entire length of the ridge.
We then made short work of the crux downclimb. It’s actually a lot bigger than it looks, but not bad. We chose a sort of diagonal line coming from around the right side of the image, I’m not exactly sure where though.
Now we would get into the bigger elevation loss and gain for the last three bumps.
Probably the most exposed unavoidable section of the traverse. Fairly straightforward. It’s fun scrambling for sure.
There are many, many, many small peaks along the way.
Mount Fullerton at center. Remus and Romulus poke out at left. This is also a great view of the dry Nihahi creek valley that can be a suitable approach for Fullerton or even as a descent from Nihahi.
Looking back at the expanse of the ridge that we just came up. It was getting a little old at this point, but we still had to summit!
At this point you may be asking if this is the summit, and thankfully it is (not). There’s still a whole other false summit to go over.
After the last false summit, some interesting rock finally leads to the true summit.
Mount Howard is another fairly isolated peak in this area (center).
More gray scenery, with many unnamed rock hills.
Approaching the summit.
Someone enjoyed a well deserved drink at the summit a while ago.
And that’s where the pictures end. Unfortunately on this day I thought that having the summit pictures from the time before was good enough, but it’s not great now that I’m writing trip reports. Also, I’m sorry about the lack of pictures from this whole thing, as usually I’d have more, but my dad forgot his phone, so that wasn’t great.
But anyways, from the summit, we took the route that I described above and had an annoying time bushwacking out. There really isn’t a trail, so just be prepared, but the valley is definitely your best bet, since anything else is just horrible and quite densely packed with bush and deadfalls (speaking from experience from the first trip up here).
Now I know that it may sound like we didn’t really enjoy this trip, but we totally did. It’s just a long day (epic day actually), but I would totally recommend it. If you want to do a crazy long ridge walk, this is for you. Just make sure that you’re comfortable on Class III terrain, as there is a fair bit of it. I’d also recommend this to trail runners or people looking to give themselves a challenge of a day. It’s also worth mentioning that people often combine this traverse with Compression ridge for an even more epic day. Now, although I did enjoy this day, I probably won’t be back, unless I do this one as a trail run. Actually I might be back… I think this would make a beautiful sunrise trail run and if I could bag Compression with it too that would be even better. Yeah, that sounds like a really great idea.