Old Baldy Peak via alternative route (solo)
This route to Old Baldy is mentioned by Andrew Nugara as a “shorter” approach (we did the “longer” one as a loop this spring, but were out of time and did not make it to the summit back then, only to the ridge, – still very nice, like on the photo above). Alternative route is indeed shorter than the official hike from Evan-Thomas Day Use Area, but it does not mean faster at all, – the route up to the Old Baldy West Ridge is overgrown, even if you find the correct “trail”, which on the way up I did not. You cannot park at the Boundary Ranch nowadays, as Nugara suggests, – parking there is limited to the ranch customers, but leaving the car next to the ranch right on the side of HW 40 is not a problem.
You can totally use my track below with one correction: once at the Flat Creek, keep ascending on the left side of it – apparently there is a faint, but still sort of trail there. Check Alltrails map every few minutes because the “trail” keeps disappearing and showing up from thin air again and again. If you ascend on the right side of Flat Creek, like I did by mistake, you’ll find yourself in ridiculous class 5 bushwhacking till the very base of West Old Baldy Ridge, and you cannot even correct your route at that point because of high cliffs on both sides of the creek which you cannot cross.
Once on the ridge and begin ascending, don’t forget to look back, and you can already spot some familiar peaks:
After my recent Collembola solo and this hike I am done with all bushwhacking for this and probably a couple of more seasons. But after all I am glad I did it – Old Baldy Peak dominates a very wide area of Kananaskis, and on a good smokeless day you can see from the summit literally everything.
More photos from my Old Baldy solo via alternative route are here: