Porcupine Ridge is a 6.7 mile moderately trafficked out and back trail located near Municipal District of Bighorn No. 8, Alberta, Canada that features beautiful wild flowers and is rated as difficult. The trail is primarily used for hiking, nature trips, and bird watching and is best used from June until October. Dogs are also able to use this trail but must be kept on leash.
If parking at the Wasootch parking lot, follow the trail to the bridge but don’t cross it - go right at the creek and the trail is easy to see. Well packed trail with a steady incline, great views!
April 18, 2021Has some steeper sections and ice cleats and poles are a must. Busy on Saturday with noisy groups but was cool to watch the rock climbers.
April 18, 2021Great shoulder season hike! Would rate moderate instead of hard. Only downside is that it’s busy.
April 18, 2021Absolutely loved it, one of my fav hikes in recent years. Similar experience that i had with tent horseshoe hike, difference is no loop back to trailhead with this hike, its out and back, otherwise would have been even better. Trail is not all the way up steep, at times there are relatively flat section where you can catch your breath. There are still bit of snow up there which makes a little hard, but if you have crampon, that should do it. Overall, its an excellent trail for hiking.
April 17, 2021Steep, slippery, fun!
April 17, 2021Micro spikes and poles are highly recommended. Beautiful day!
April 16, 2021Awesome day! All sun and no wind. Poles and micro spikes recommended for these spring conditions
April 11, 2021Solid end of winter hike. Definitely need microspikes, and poles would also be a help! Birders - Keep an eye out for American Dippers in the river!
April 10, 2021Awesome- first ones up in fresh snow. Mild wind and done the hike by 2:00. Crampons very helpful.
April 8, 2021Spikes were definitely helpful! Not just at the top but during multiple points of the hike! The wind was absolutely ridiculous so we also didn’t summit, but other than that, trail was good!
April 5, 2021Spikes are definitely useful at this time of the year, especially for the last kilometre, which my friend and I didn’t end up doing as we didn’t had spikes. The hike is great though, nice viewpoints and great scenery! The beginning of the hike, where there’s some river crossings, I wish we would of crossed the river on the tree trunks since we tried to go on a steep rock but I fell in the water and my socks were humid for the rest of the hike.
April 3, 2021Emilie, we saw it. It was closed to the river. Sorry we did not pick it up since we though the person would notice and come back soon. It was a indeed a great, beautiful day!
April 3, 2021Amazing hike ! Challenging at the beginning and towards the end but the view is breathtaking
April 3, 2021Great conditions
April 3, 2021March 31, 2021Hiked on March 30, 2021. A lot of fresh snow and lots of path finding after the big snowfall yesterday. Snow was about 2ft high up to the bottom of true summit. We had to turn around as we couldn’t find proper footing on our way to scramble up to the actual ridge. Snow and super icy also one part was super expose. 4 of us called it a day! Will try again at the end of spring. But it was still a fun hike. Poles and crampons a must.
March 27, 2021March 27, 2021good hike. we only did it to the first peak wind gusts were a little excessive. Crampons were super helpful. seen at least one group turn around because they kept sliding. did the hike with our boarder collie and she had no issues anywhere.
March 27, 2021Very hard
March 21, 2021March 21, 2021Fantastic ridge! We parked at the trailhead the first part along the creek is really pretty and flat then a steep uphill, a good amount of scrambling and beautiful 360 views from the ridge. Almost for sure would want spikes this time of year and poles were helpful up to the scramble
March 21, 2021March 21, 2021Wow. An amazing ridge! We didn’t go down the last rocky peak just because I wasn’t sure of my down climbing abilities. But the views were spectacular for so much of this hike. Only thing that would have made it better is if it had a lake or falls in view. Not a flip flop or keds hike. Some serious uphills. Right now the bits of remaining ice and snow make microspikes an asset to save your a$$! Poles are a good help too. Definitely a hike to hone your scramble skills.
March 21, 2021Completed it today on Mar 20, Another one of those hikes which are complete package of scramble, rock climbing, steep elevation, exposure, bit of everything. Parked at the creek bridge on High way 40 . First couple of Ks are quite nice and almost flat until you cross that fancy log bridge and after that you have to take a sudden climb and thats the start of fun part. Our moving time was almost four and a half hours, we braved winds gusts and flurries and reached the final summit. Could not dare taking that knife edge ride towards the tower but stood there and admired those people in my heart who took that route and reached tower. It was beyond my zone. Overall very god hike.
March 20, 2021
