Hawkins Horseshoe
Interesting how your legs are never tired when the views are amazing
Hawkins Horseshoe
Notable Visited Landmarks
Mountains
Introduction
Hawkins Horseshoe is beautiful ridge walk that brings you to the highest point of Waterton National Park (Mount Blakiston), along with Mount Hawkins and Mount Lineham, and if you have enough energy the peaks on the ridges connecting these mountains. Under good conditions (no snow) this is a class 3 outing to get up to Blakiston. From there the rest of the trip is essentially a walk with a small section of easy scrambling along the ridge.
Despite the easy terrain the trip itself is not easy. If you bypass the peaks connecting the 3 main mountains then you have about 1850m of elevation gain to do some of which comes on loose scree up Blakiston, and between 20 and 25 kilometers distance. Adding in the other peaks as I did pushed this up to about 2130m and after a mishap on the descent and having to backtrack the trip ended up being 2300m of elevation gain for me and 25.76km.
Approximate track from the day
Mount Blakiston
Kayla, Dad and I camped June 2, 2021 (year 2 of the covid) in the Waterton Townsite so that we could get an early start the next day. We woke up relatively early, drove to the lineham Falls trailhead and were on trail at about 5:36. We were on trail for about 3.5km and gained a casual 300m of elevation gain when we came to a break in the trees where a creek came down from Blakiston.
Creek that is the route up Blakiston
We started following this creek up the right side. The terrain steepened and became blockier which led to some fun scrambling opportunities. The blocky terrain ended at a grey band of rock which we were able to ascend via an obvious break to the right of the creek. Above this band we angled up and to climber’s left through horribly loose scree to the cliffs blocking us from the summit of Blakiston.
Dad coming up the blockier terrain
Grey rock band, the weakness in the band is angled diagonally up and to the left
We aimed just to the left of the buttress furthest right which gave us access to the coulier which took us up. The bottom half of the coulier was filled with snow/ice so we used crampons and kept them on for the dry upper part of the coulier. Above the coulier there was some lingering snow and then just a large pile of boulders bringing us to the top of Blakiston.
Aim just to the left of the buttress which is the furthest right of rock making up the cliffs
Kayla and Dad coming up some snow just below the buttress
Me ascending the lower part of the coulier, image from Dane McArthur
Views from the top of Blakiston were fantastic, which can generally be expected from the tallest mountain in the area. It took us about 5 hours to get up to Blakiston, we were slowed down carrying crampons, mountaineering boots, and I was carrying 6L of water, this was an incredibly hot day and I didn’t want to be battling dehydration. By this time we had also already gained about 1340m of elevation and we had much more to gain.
Summit view looking East
Summit view looking South
Dad and Kayla with the ridge we are about to walk behind them, Lineham is the mountain at left
Mount Hawkins
From Blakiston the ridge starts off wide and easy losing elevation. A short way off the summit we went uphill for about 10 or 20 meters before continuing to lose elevation down the ridge. Coming up to a low point in the ridge, the ridge became more rigid, with some downclimbs which we bypassed to the right, continually losing more elevation until we got to the low point.
Looking towards the 10-20m uphill section early on the ridge
Ridge becomes more rigid
We dropped skiers right of the ridge proper
From the low point on the ridge there is some class 2 scrambling to gain elevation above blocky terrain where there is then a trail to bypass the next peak by traversing the West face. Dad and Kayla took this trail, while I went right over the peak to gain an extra 50 or so meters of elevation. From the top of this peak I had a nice vantage point of the Lineham Lakes which were all frozen.
Class 2 scrambling above the low point
View of Lineham Lakes from the peak I ascended
From the peak I descended to meet up with Dad and Kayla and continue along the ridge to another low point before another push of about 200 vertical meters to the top of Mount Hawkins. Going up to Hawkins we kept close to the ridge for better scrambling opportunities. Views from the top of Hawkins like from much of the ridge were very nice.
Kayla on a fun scrambling section going up the ridge to Mount Hawkins
Dad coming up the ridge to Mount Hawkins, Lineham Lakes behind him and Mount Lineham at left
View South from Mount Hawkins
View West from Mount Hawkins
Mount Lineham
From Hawkins we continued along the ridge where Dad and Kayla followed a trail around a higher point of the ridge to the right, I stayed on the ridge proper giving me excellent views of Lineham Lakes. I soon met up with Dad and Kayla and although there were generally trails bypassing small peaks to the right, we kept going up the peaks for good views and extra bits of elevation gain. By the time we were at the low point before the final ~250m push to Mount Lineham Kayla and Dad had done about 1800m of elevation gain, and I had done about 1875m.
High Point on the ridge usually bypassed
The final push up Mount Lineham was a tiring and slow moving process but the views all around were great which kept us moving forward. At the top of Mount Lineham I had done 2125m of elevation gain and Dad and Kayla had done 2050m. We took a nice break at the summit and refueled for what we expected to be an easy descent.
Kayla and Dad almost at the top of Mount Lineham
View South from the summit of Mount Lineham
Mount Blakiston as seen from Mount Lineham, the route is not as steep as it looks
Descent
On descent we started going down the wrong way, we started going down the ridge we came up and I quickly noticed we were too far West of the descent gully. We angled skiers left and down to try to get back but there was steep snow leading into the gully. It looked less steep further down, so I plotted a route to get us into the gully. When we got to the snow, we found that it was soft and I fell through in places. Not wanting to risk an injury we had to ascent 172m vertical up loose scree to get around the snow and into the gully.
We found the snow was soft here so we went back up
We took the avalanche gully down to the forest where after some bushwhacking towards the creek in the forest we ran into the trail that took us back to the highway. After about 15 hours we were essentially back at the highway where Kayla was not feeling too well, probably from mild heat exhaustion. Back at the highway I left Dad and Kayla with our packs and ran the last 1.3km back to the Lineham Falls trailhead to retrieve the truck and drive back to pick up Dad and Kayla.
This is a beautiful, although long ridge walk, and I highly recommend it for those looking for good views and a long trip.
Looking down the Avalanche gully, we need to get around the snow to skiers left
Bushwhacking to the trail that will bring us back to the road