North of Cochrane on the two lane highway 22 to Sundre we were slowed down by an over sized load carrying a building structure. Later west of Sundre another much more minor delay was from a dozen wild horses across the road. As a consequence we parked below a ridge on the Ya Ha Tinda road just after 10:00 am. I was using for reference for this trip a trip report from Spectacular Mountains web site and on checking the GPS track from there we were below the wrong ridge for the Spectacular mountains route! In fact, as Yolande commented later, this ridge would have provided easier access to the ridge and with a car shuttle there are easier options to traverse the entirety of the ridge. It was only about a kilometre along the road to the Spectacular mountains departure point. So, after a short drive, we did get under way I think around 10:30 am. Ascending the ridge we did find some scrambling that was probably SC6 for some fairly short sections.
Arnold on short slabby SC6 section ascending to "Wildhorse ridge"
The following photo gives an idea, behind the ladies, of our ascent ridge (taken on descent):
Ascent ridge behind the ladies at a rest stop on descent of "Wildhorse ridge"
We stopped for lunch in the the shelter of the last few trees below the ridge proper around 12:30 as the chinook winds were present and we thought likely stronger higher up (they were!). Most of the ridge is easy hiking with some animal trails and views to the west where we could see a squall approaching. Not much precipitation from the squall which, typically for a chinook, fizzled out east of the Rockies. At this little summit there was a register which Janice put our names in I think (thanks!).
Yolande, Inge, Janice and John on high point on "Wildhorse ridge"
The descent ridge, initially, was straight forward as can be seen in this photo:
Foreground is our descent ridge with "Maze peak" behind
In the above photo the couple of gendarmes on the left of the photo were circumvented on the north side on some steepish, slabby ground with snow patches that required care. Looking at another, rather poor, photo this morning it may have been easier to drop down on the south side of the gendarmes:
Maybe bypass these gendarmes on the south side? - We did n't!
After this traverse we climbed a bit to a minor high point.
View back to high point on "Wildhorse ridge"
From this minor high point we could see we would have easier travel, except for climbing over fairly sparse burnt deadfall, back to the road. At the road a short 100 metre hike got us back to the car just after 4:00 pm. The drive back to Calgary went better than the morning taking just over 2 hours with some rain west of and around Sundre. Thanks to the group of Arnold, Yolande, Janice and Inge for exploring what was a little harder trip than I, John, advertised I think. I enjoyed the day in this area which is less visited by the Ramblers.
