Elpoca East Ridge

Elpoca East Ridge
Kananaskis Country, Alberta
October 9, 2021
Distance: 12.4 km
Cumulative Elevation Gain: 678 m

While scouring maps for new ideas, I became intrigued with a ridge on the east side of Elpoca Mountain. The ridge, which forms one side of an alpine basin, appeared to have a distinct high point, a small summit of sorts. A route looked promising, although I couldn't be sure if some obstacle would stop us. We would find out when we got there.

Dinah and I met Zora, Jonathan, Bernadette, Suzy and Yuko at the Elbow Pass trailhead. We hiked to Elbow Lake and continued down the trail over the pass. Four kilometres later, we left the trail and rock-hopped across Elbow River. Then we crossed an undulating meadow to reach the treed slope below the basin.

After entering the trees, we realized we were committed to ascending left of a hidden gully. We soon emerged onto an open ridge left of the basin. We had a beautiful view of Elbow Valley behind us, but we were lured to the landscape ahead: enormous erratics that towered over our heads. We couldn't resist scrambling up a couple of them.

Afterwards, we crossed the edge of the basin to the other side where the East Ridge begins. Soon after starting up, we encountered another set of stupendous boulders that rose up like a castle. A natural playground, we were drawn to clamber up these too before continuing to the ridge crest.

Once on the ridge, it appeared we could reach the summit 600 m away. We made our way along the ridge, mostly left of the crest to avoid going over all the high points. We reached the summit, although we had to take turns on top as it was too small to hold everyone. Then we sat down for lunch with a grand view of the valley and peaks that lined it.

Fortunately, we didn’t have to follow the ridge all the way back. We backtracked a brief distance to a patch of black shale, the start of a quick scree descent to the tranquil basin below. In the basin, we crossed to the other end where we saw the first boulders.

Instead of using the ridge south of the gully, we descended the slope north. Being laced with smooth slabs, it was trickier than our ascent ridge, but we reached the meadow and entered the trees below. After crossing the gully, we broke out onto the meadow, on track with our ascent route. We traversed the meadow and followed Elbow Pass trail back to our cars.

Elpoca East Ridge, as I called it, was an easy climb, not much more than a steep hike with striking landscape. Impressive scenery is usually reserved for big climbs, but sometimes good things come in small packages.

KML and GPX Tracks

Arriving at Elbow Lake