Southfork Mountain & Barnaby Ridge

I’ve been interested in Southfork Mountain and the traverse to (or from) Barnaby Ridge for a while now since reading multiple trip reports on it over the years. It seemed to be the type of trip that is more effort than you expect - which describes a lot of the Castle Wilderness Area peaks and trips that I’ve done over the years. I imagined the views must be pretty sweet, as a previous trip in the area with Wietse up Gravenstafel Ridge and Mount Haig was very scenic.

The only problem was timing. A few weeks ago Wietse, Dave and I drove within a few hundred meters of the trailhead before turning around and hiking McGillivray Ridge and Ma Butte instead - thanks to pouring rain in the Castle area. The weather in the Rockies wasn’t looking great on Monday, September 19th and I was feeling a wee bit tired after a 30+km and 2k vertical solo effort on Pharaoh Peak the day before. I didn’t have too many objectives that interested me in the questionable weather in Waterton, so I decided to attempt Southfork and Barnaby Ridge. I have to admit I wasn’t really feeling it as I made the long drive towards the trailhead. I was tired from the day before and my views and experience on Pharaoh was so good that I wondered what I was hoping to accomplish by going out again so soon. One thing pushing me a bit was that I was taking two weeks off and I didn’t want to sit home all week just because the weather wasn’t perfect! I’ve learned over the years that 9 times out of 10, if you get out there, the weather usually isn’t as bad as you think it will be.

As I drove I changed my mind on the route I’d take. Originally I was planning on the shortest route as documented by Nugara in his guidebook, but as I drove closer towards the trailhead I noticed the low clouds and even rain coming down on surrounding peaks and decided that this might not be a summit day for me. I also noticed how freaking high Southfork looked from the road and knew that Barnaby was higher. I decided to try Bob’s recommended route via the Southfork Lakes hiking trail and hopefully see some nice fall scenery around the lakes if nothing else. If the weather and my attitude improved I could still bag the peaks - albeit a slightly longer version than Nugara’s off trail route. Finding the trailhead was interesting. I turned off the main road (hwy 774) at a small blue sign on the left hand side of the road that had the number “5003” on it, down a narrow dirt access road. With the puddles and mud I was happy to have 4x4 but worst case you could just walk in this road - the trailhead isn’t far from the main road.

I was following Bob’s GPS track to find where they crossed the West Castle River and I ended up finding a makeshift bridge instead. That was a nice bonus! I didn’t even have to get wet feet. Finding the trail on the other side wasn’t hard due to ribbons and a worn path, but without a GPS track I would have missed it on ascent. On descent I crossed the shallow river right by the truck and found a small sign indicating the start of the unofficial trail. There are numerous ATV and hunting trails in the area so good luck finding the proper one if you don’t use a GPS.

The weather wasn’t horrible as I started up the meandering lower trail. I slowly started feeling better as I gained height through open forest onto a lower shoulder of Southfork. I was tired but the scenery opening up across the West Castle was pretty darn sweet and the fresh air was rapidly clearing my head. Soon I was following trail markers up steep switchbacks on an open, gravel shoulder head steeply upwards and curving gently towards Southfork. I was all alone again, and unlike in Banff the day before, there was NOBODY around me on this trail.

Eventually I topped out on the shoulder and followed the great trail back into thicker forest where it undulated towards Lower Southfork Lake, now following high above Barnaby Creek. I arrived at a fishing survey box before cresting alongside a small set of falls and coming up to the Lower Southfork Lake. People obviously camp up here but it was clean and looked well taken care of - I was impressed with the lack of garbage that is usually associated with random backcountry campsites. Southfork Mountain itself was still shrouded in clouds but I pushed on towards the Middle Southfork Lake - again on an excellent trail.

The trail navigated a headwall between the Middle and Lower Southfork Lakes, going through thick Krumholtz and up small rock steps until I was staring at another beautiful backcountry lake surrounded by a pretty incredible larch forest on Southfork Mountain’s north and east slopes above. I fully expected to see a large grizzly tearing up the slopes around me, but thankfully this didn’t happen with me there. I had made decent time to the lakes and really didn’t want to go home already so I turned my attention up to Southfork Mountain. The eastern slopes looked really easy so I simply followed them up, reasoning that worst case I could bag Southfork and come back for Barnaby Ridge via Nugara’s route sometime later.

After wading through a very intense larch forest I followed the rubbly, block north ridge up towards the summit. The clouds were still swirling furiously around the local peaks but my views were pretty darn sweet across to Haig and Gravenstafel and east towards Table Mountain. I summitted in a cool wind and ducked out of it to decide what to do next. I put my Gore-Tex pants on and decided to traverse along Barnaby Ridge for an hour. After that I’d make a decision to either turn back or summit Barnaby. 

Barnaby Ridge

After getting over a serious lack of motivation and summiting Southfork Mountain, I decided to give myself an hour towards Barnaby Ridge to see where that would take me. The weather seemed to be clearing a bit but the wind was pretty strong (normal for the Castle Wilderness Area!) so I bundled up in my Gore-Tex layers and trundled off, south along Barnaby Ridge towards it’s unseen summit.

I knew that I was in for some ups and downs on the south ridge to the summit and I was right. The first serious bump after Southfork offered the only real scrambling of the day - it was fairly easy if you stick to climber’s right on the way up. The trick to not tiring yourself out unnecessarily on this traverse is to find and use sheep trails that cut off unnecessary elevation gains - these are sometimes obvious and sometimes not. After the first bump I found myself looking at a pretty wild scene! The wind wasn’t as strong as earlier on Southfork, and the clouds were lifting somewhat and even letting the sun through. The summit looked a LONG ways off and I almost turned back at this point but my hour wasn’t up so I trudged on.

After dropping down to yet another col along the ridge I found myself on a pretty neat bench and obvious bivy spot. This would be a great place to spend a night just above treeline with some pretty killer views towards Castle Mountain and Windsor Peak. I took a quick break here and made my final decision. I was feeling it. I was going to bag Barnaby today. I set up doing just that, traversing upwards towards the second high point along the ridge.

The final drop before Barnaby wasn’t too bad - the summit looked awesome in the play of sun and clouds and I was feeling pretty good about making a double summit on a day when I really didn’t expect to make even one. The views towards Castle Peak and her surrounding peaks were pretty darn spectacular as I groveled and hobbled my way up to the summit of Barnaby Ridge - thankfully the closest high point for once! At the summit I traversed a bit to the east to get some unbelievable views of Castle and Windsor mountains. I was pretty stoked to be standing there all alone with the wild scenery of fall spread out underneath me. Familiar Castle peaks like Haig, Gravenstafel, Syncline, St. Eloi, Victoria and Table stood out like old friends.

After snapping way too many photographs I reluctantly turned around and looked at the traverse back towards Southfork. The only disadvantage of doing the route via Southfork Lakes is that you either need to reverse all the ups and downs along the ridge back to Southfork or drop down and hike a bunch of kilometers to your car.

The dropping down option is easiest but boring. So I chose to go back along the ridge to the summit of Southfork Mountain. The views were great again on the way back which dulled some of the pain.

As I dropped back down to Southfork Lakes from the summit of Southfork, I noticed the different lighting from earlier. The hike out was fairly quick and enjoyable for the most part. The few places of height gain on return hurt though. When I got back to the West Castle River I simply walked through it (ankle deep) with my shoes on, which took me directly to my truck. I also noticed a small home made sign marking the trailhead.

Southfork Lakes are a worthwhile destination on their own. Adding two peaks always elevates the day a little bit. Another ‘winner’ in the Castle Wilderness. But aren’t they all?