Trail up the mound .Valley meadow & Nihahi Rdge behind
First scramble up Nihahi Ridge
Monday July 21st 2014
Nihahi Ridge Traverse near Bragg Creek starts from the campground at the end at Little Elbow Recreational area. They do not allow parking in the campground but you can drive up towards it and there is a small area to park. That still leaves about 1.0 km to walk up the gravel road to the trail head. There are three signs, two on your right, so keep your eyes peeled. The route goes up a small hill which opens up to views of Nihahi Ridge across a meadow.We saw a large Grizzly Bear feeding in the grassed area. It appears that the trail is going on the wrong direction but soon swings around under the ridge. The weather was not good to us – as we arrived dark clouds and pouring rain but it soon stopped so we set off. Later on the way up through the trees the thunder moved in again and it rained for about half an hour. The picture above shows the first scramble if you take the trail under the ridge. On return we stayed up on the lower ridge and scrambled down as shown in the next picture.This eliminates the steep treed portion.
The scramble for the lower ridge
The first section of the ridge we missed on the way up because we did not scramble up the section in the picture above. Instead we followed a track below and came to the ( small ) picture of the first scramble above.
Looking back to the first section of ridge
Looking up to the second main section
Yes we were up there
The ridge gets interesting from now on, you can scramble along for miles or until Compression Ridge. We stopped at a high point before a down climb to another high point.
Razors edge would be a good name
This was our high point of the day at the top of the picture at 2392m. Kane’s book shows the high point at 2530 m they all looked the same elevation from our vantage point.
At the sign left to the meadow right to the elbow river
On our return we took the route to the right, opposite to the arrow direction. This is the very first lower section and leads you down into Elbow Creek. The route down is well-defined on the mountain but once into the woods it becomes a bushwhack due to dead fall and blown down trees. I think it saved some time and distance as we did not have to go across the meadow and down the mound.
Distance return 11.75 km Time return 5:30 hrs ( inc 30 min lunch ) Elevation Accumulated gain 940 m Elevation to Summit 770m Summit height 2392 m
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