Bald Hills

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For our hike, we ended up explore a little bit further along the Bald Hill Ridge. Part of this was because of my curiosity about the Six Pass Alternate Route would have continued further south. The actual looped hike for Bald Hills is about 8.5 miles.

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Our hike began at the busy Maligne Lake parking are for hikers, not the Maligne Lake Lodge. It was overflowing during peak tourist season despite iffy weather. We had to circle the parking lot twice before squeezing into a spot. The busy parking lot is understandable since this is the trailhead for several different hikes in the area.

The directions to each specific trail is well signed and we crossed Maligne Lake Road toward the trailhead for Bald Hills. There is a informational kiosk.

The initial portion of the trail was on a wide dirt road and we would be staying on it for the first 1.7 miles of the hike. The elevation gain was minor at the beginning around 5.6% grade and slowed increased to 14.3% by the time we were turning off it.

The trail passes a cottage of sorts on the right and a junction for the Moose Lake Loop on the left just before the quarter mile mark. The rest of the time on the dirt road was spend winding through the forest. The dirt road is a multi-use use trail which means bikers and horses are to be expected. Apparently, that included ATVs as well since i guess this portion is considered a gravel road (maybe?, Parks Canada), so do watch out.

At the 1.7 mile mark, we came to the junction that makes the hike loopish. The junction is for the shorter but steeper trail toward Bald Hills in comparison to the dirt road, but both will converge further up on the mountain. Since we like taking the steeper portions on the uphills and were looking to get away from the dirt road, we turned left onto the trail. This section was about 0.8 miles with an average grade of 20.0%. The trail was plenty well worn with tree roots showing.

After a few switchbacks, the trees started to thing out and we caught glimpses of Maligne Lake.

At the 2.5 mile mark, the Bald Hill Trails combine once again and continued on a bench. The 6.1% grade felt flat after our uphill. In quarter mile we came to the junction to head up toward the Bald Hills Summit.

However, there was a large of of hikers and just started to head up, so we opted to take trail around the summit first and hiking to the summit on the backside by turning left at a the next junction. Though there seemed to be a couple of trails here and there was be another option to head up the front side of Bald Hills Summit a few steps after we turned on out trail going around Bald Hills Summit.

Our path was the other loopish aspect of the trail. The trail around the summit continued on the edge of the tree line with plenty of adolescent pines dotting the grassy slopes.

It was about third quarters of a mile with an grade of 9.4% until we reached the junction at the far side of Bald Hills Summit.

At this junction, we saw there was a worn path continuing further south along the ridge. I believe this was part of the Six Pass Alternate Route for the GDT. So we decided to hike along it until the next sumit out of curiosity. Also this allowed us to avoid the large group of hikers coming off of Bald Hills Summit.

So we continued on for another 0.6 miles with the steepest incline of 14.7% grade. It wasn’t the uphills that was difficult here, but the blistering wind. Overall, it was worth the extra effort as we reached the highest point of our hike with a stretched out view of Maligne Lake with the Queen Elizabeth Ranges hiding in the low clouds.

Pretty soon the strong wind brought its friend, Mr Hail. So we put on all our layers and started to head back.

Back at the backside junction for Bald Hills Summit, we decided to we might as well head up there despite to howling wind and hail. When in Rome. We were actually able to find some respite from the wind behind the rocks at the summit. However it seems like tourists have been feeding the squirrels as they were learned to not fear us and were expecting food. They were also aggressive as one jumped on another hiker when they brought their food out. So a reminder to not feed the wildlife.

We did not stay long and continued down the other side of the summit, which were composed of large slabs of rocks.

After the summit, there was a nice viewpoint of the Evelyn Creek drainage to the west. Evelyn Peak was observed in the clouds, however.

Lastly, we headed up to the final viewpoint from Bald Hills to the east, including Maligne Lake, Leah Peak in the clouds, and Opal Peak.

Again, we didn’t stick around for long because of the wind. But we also stopped applenting on our way down from the viewpoint.

It was only 0.15 miles down to the junction with the trail we had taken earlier, with the steepest grade about -19.8%. However footing was a bit more precarious since it was mostly dirt on the trail.

On our way out, we took the longer and less steep option to save our knees and ankles, but also to complete the loop. Retracing our previous steps and passing the junction for the steeper Bald Hills Trail, we came to the end of the dirt road 0.5 miles from where we came down from Bald Hills Summit. There were a few tie-ups for horses and bike locks here.

We continued on the dirt road for 1.7 miles until we reached the junction with the steeper Bald Hill Trail. The grade was a much gentiler -8.5% average, though there were a couple steep steps at -18.8%.

The trees were sparse enough that we were able to get a few views of the Maligne River drainage. It was a pleasant surprise along with the better weather below the peak.

From the junction with the steeper Bald Hills Trail, it was just retracing our steps for the last 1.8 miles to close out the hike.

Before we returned to our car, we stopped by the boat dock on maligne Lake near the parking lot. It was a busy scene without any of the incremental weather we experienced on top of the Bald Hills.

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The rating below are based on an unevenly distributed scale of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). For full description of the ratings and the categories, see the explanation here.

views/experience: 3. The highlight of the hike took place once we were above treeline. From the Bald Hills Summit, Maligne Lake is stretched out in the valley below with impressive jagged peaks behind it. From different points on around the summit, we also had views of the Maligne River drainage and the Evoline Creek drainage. Working up to the tree line does requires some work as a large portion of the trail is within the forest and a portion of that is on a dirt road.

The Maligne Lake area as a whole would rate as a 4, but not specifically this hike. I would travel back here in the future to either do some kayaking and camping along Maligne Lake or hike the Six Pass GDT Alternate section.

difficulty: 2. With the elevation gain totaling 2410 ft, some work is required to reach the summit. The sudden change in weather once we were in the open past the tree line made the hike more difficult. At least it wasn’t a thunderstorm.

technical: 1. There isn’t any scrambling on the hike, just some rocks you need to step around at the Bald Hills Summit. The elevation profile for the hike isn’t too steep either that you’d need to use your hands. The trails aren’t signed well around the summit, but it’s pretty clear where you need to go since it is in the open. Plus there are a good number of visitors you can follow.