Barrier Lookout and Jewell Pass

Sat. 3 July: Barrier Lookout and Jewell Pass

There’s no point trying to avoid the crowds if you want to go hiking on the July Long Weekend. The only card you can play is the early start card. And it worked for us today.

With JM back in town, and officially retired, I finally have a hiking colleague to share the trails with. Today J did the driving out to the Kananaskis Valley. We had a few options for the day, but chose Barrier Lookout trail, making a return loop via Jewell Pass. The trailhead is less than an hour from the city, and the traffic was light.

Our trip started at the Barrier Lake parking area and we were first up the trail today. This trail starts by crossing the Barrier Lake dam, a grand way to start a hike, with impressive mountains surrounding the lake, and our destination high up on the western skyline.

This is the way to climb mountains: gentle switchbacks all the way to the top – or almost all the way. Eleven zigs and zags took us quickly up through the forested hillside out onto the lower viewpoint where the Pigeon lookout hut once stood. I saw it on my first trip up here in 1982, before it was removed and superseded by a new lookout higher up on the ridgetop.

From this lower vantage point, the views were wonderful. But a steep ascent soon had us up onto a higher cliff with even better views. Here we could see eastwards to Calgary and the Bow Valley, as well as to a sea of mountains to the south. This is called Prairie View Viewpoint, part of McConnell Ridge.

Having gone this far, we continued up a good, but steep, trail up the final ridge to the “new” lookout building, erected in the early 1980’s. This final trail comes out right on the edge of a very dangerous cliff, with rocks which look in real danger of tumbling to the forest below. This is the cliff one sees every time one drives west along the Trans-Canada Highway into the mountains to Banff. From below, it is just another mountainside, ringed by much higher and more spectacular peaks. But from above, we really did have a bird’s eye view of that busy highway snaking its way off the prairie into the mountains, as well as the spectacular Yamnuska Mountain right opposite, and the Kananaskis River meeting with the Bow River. This was a spectacular, dangerous place to stand. With a small extra effort we were on the summit, where the fire lookout building sits, along with various other buildings, aeriels, the helicopter pad, and so on.


There was no sign of the lookout observer. Nevertheless, we walked across to the west side of the summit to take a look at the view up the Bow Valley towards Banff. The clouds were heavy in that direction, and the winds were cold. I could see an artist’s easel inside the lookout building, and since it was only around 9.30 in the morning, the observer might still be asleep in bed. This is one of the busiest lookout destinations, and so the observer probably tries to ignore hikers as much as possible.


So we returned down the upper ridge, before turning right and dropping down into a heavily forested valley beyond McConnell Ridge. A good trail led us down and down through the trees, on an extension of the Prairie View trail. There were really no views, but the steady downward path was our reward after the steep uphills before!

Reaching a junction in a small clearing on the valley floor, we turned left. In each direction the trails headed back into the trees. We were now on Jewell Pass Trail which the map shows as being part of the Trans-Canada trail. It continued to drop down through the woods. Somewhere along this section, we met our first traveler of the day- not bad for Canada Day weekend. From now on, we were seldom alone for more than a few minutes at a time. We dropped down to a small stream, and to our right was a pretty waterfall of about twenty feet in height. This was a great place for a rest in the cool shade. Here we saw our first two bikers of the day.


The trail now followed the tumbling stream down a narrow valley, then contouring higher above the valley floor before swinging round above Barrier Lake beneath the ugly power lines. We enjoyed a lunch break by the edge of the lake, checking out the various mountains all around: Mount Baldy (7192 ft) across the lake, Mount Lorette (8159 ft.) behind us, and even higher peaks to the south. The wildflowers along this final section above the lake, under the power line right of way, were fine, and J did an awesome job of capturing these with his excellent camera.


We were soon back at the Stoney Trail junction and on the final stretch back across the dam to our car. By now there was a steady stream of trippers on the trail, enjoying the perfect hiking weather. There were plenty of clouds, but no serious threat of any rain. Our car park was now full! This was more like the type of long weekend afternoon that we know and love (or not!!!!!!).


Statistics
Barrier Lookout & Jewell Pass
Sat. 3 July

Total Dist. 15.7 km (hike)
Height Gain 2050 ft.
Max. Elev. 6550 ft.
Time on trail 5 hrs. 16 mins.