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Grant’s Tracks

Climb to the Summit of Horton's Hill

·1077 words·6 mins
Hiking Geocaching Kananaskis
Kananaskis Summer Trip - 2025 - This article is part of a series.
Part 1: The Climb to the Summit of Mt Burke
Part 2: This Article
Part 3: The Path to Finding "Pathfinder"
Part 4: Hiking Baldy Pass Trail to Lusk Pass Trail

I’ve harboured a recurring desire to climb Horton’s Hill for years. Years.

My past visits to Kananaskis have usually been centered around the north section of this big, beautiful park, with the dusty, graveled Highway 68 as the backbone of my visits.

Geocaches hidden in this area have been the lure to keep me returning. I still think of my very first visit to Kananaskis in 2010 when I climbed up to find the Lusk Creek Central Summit cache as magical. That off trail, out of the envelope experience for me at the time simply put the hook in me and hasn’t yet let go.

The views are wonderful once you climb that hill
The views are wonderful once you climb that hill
Today’s goal was to climb “Horton’s Hill”, so named because of the nearby Tim Horton Children’s Ranch just to the northeast of the hill.

After parking and getting geared up, I headed toward what promised on the OSM map to be the trailhead. Sure enough, the trail was there, and sure enough, echoing some comments in cache logs I’d read, the way up was steep!

As I ascended, I simply reminded myself of my favourite mantra: “I’ve got all day” and added to that, “Just rest and recover when you need to”. The experience of what was for me a completely “out of the envelope” experience of climbing Mt Burke two days before gave me new, confident expectations that I would and could endure anything this “hill” was going to challenge me with. I’d endured that mountain climb; surely I could endure this.

That base of psychological assuredness simply erased any doubt of a successful climb today and turned the focus into a continuous mental cycle of “climb - rest - climb - rest” versus a “climb - will I make it? - climb - should I quit?” cycle.

As I ascended, there were stops and a couple of detours to find geocaches, some being easier to locate than others. But after I’d gained enough elevation, the real “finds” of the day were the views to the northeast. It’s amazing that such a relatively small change on the map can alter one’s perspective and deepen one’s sheer appreciation of the beauty of this Earth we inhabit.

This appreciation is the basic point of every activity you might see on this website.

The top portion of the summit register book cover - WOO!
The top portion of the summit register book cover - WOO!
Once near the summit, I was both surprised and happy to find a summit register installed in a large, watertight ammo can. I signed the register after scanning a number of other amusing entries from the past.

After that, I located one of the “must-find” geocaches of the day: an older cache, hidden by a geocacher known to create high-quality cache containers. And once I’d found this cache, I saw it was certainly another example of just that.

I don’t usually publicly post images of found caches, but in this case, I’m making an exception: the cache container is just so nicely done that I feel compelled to share its double-double coolness. See it in the gallery below.

 

 

I took an alternate route back down the hill because caches were hidden along what was said to be an alternate trail back to the trailhead. That "trail" mostly didn't exist, so the experience of descending the hill was part wayfinding, bushwhacking with the occasional practice of all the Anglo-Saxon words I knew, using them in different orders for variety.

I managed to get back to level ground though, this time in view of some picnickers who gazed up at me and must have wondered about the state of my sanity as I emerged from the bush and returned to the parking lot.

Gallery#

My Route Today
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This 3D map shows that Horton's Hill is indeed a hill, not a mountain, but it doesn't begin to show the steepness of the ascent to the top. I found caches on the way down along what was supposed to be a trail, but I found only remnants of one.
This 3D map shows that Horton's Hill is indeed a hill, not a mountain, but it doesn't begin to show the steepness of the ascent to the top. I found caches on the way down along what was supposed to be a trail, but I found only remnants of one.

 

Grant S Wilson
Author
Grant S Wilson
Kananaskis Summer Trip - 2025 - This article is part of a series.
Part 1: The Climb to the Summit of Mt Burke
Part 2: This Article
Part 3: The Path to Finding "Pathfinder"
Part 4: Hiking Baldy Pass Trail to Lusk Pass Trail

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