Welcome to one of the newest trail networks in the West Kootenay! This alpine circuit offers ridgelines and summits, just outside of Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park.
Distance, round trip: 12.3km
Elevation: +1025m
Season: mid-July to late September
Difficulty:
DifficultTrailhead and Driving Directions
High clearance is necessary to navigate the waterbars on West Kokanee FSR, and 4WD is helpful. This trail is not recommended for low vehicles.
From Nelson, drive 17.8 km east on Highway 3A and pass the main entrance to Kokanee Creek Provincial Park. Turn left onto Kokanee Glacier Road at 18.7 km and reset your odometer.
- At 2.3 km, keep left on the main road.
- At 6.4 km, stay left on the main road, ignoring the deactivated right spur.
- At 7.2 km, fork left on West Kokanee FSR and descend, leaving the main road behind. Waterbars begin.
- At 8km, fork right on signed Kokanee West FSR.
- At 10.9km, switchback right on the main road. Waterbars get more frequent and deep.
- At 13.3km reach the parking area with a large pullout at the end of the road. The trailhead kiosk appears ahead.
Options
You can view a map of the trail network with the South Selkirks Backcountry Association and download a KML file of the entire circuit with notes added.
This post describes hiking the largest loop counter-clockwise. This is ideal as the route from the col to the West Summit is more comfortable hiking up than down. Newer hikers may prefer to skip the West Summit option and use the Connector Trail for a shorter day.
Safety first
The trail from the col to the West Summit involves scrambling with some moments of exposure (the risk of a fall with consequences). You should be an experienced hiker, comfortable with route-finding.
Up the trail
The trail starts by following the overgrown road with relatively level terrain, and then crosses West Kokanee Creek at 0.9km on a log bridge. Now the climb begins! Ascend through the forest and pass a small cabin at 1.4km, continuing up along a tributary of the creek.
At 2.5km reach a junction with prominent flagging tape and stay right to cross the creek. Now you’re hiking the loop, starting counter-clockwise and heading first to the East Summit.
East Summit Trail
The trail continues to ascend, skirting below rock slides with thoughtful design. As the trees break away and you ascend into the the east basin, the trail fades in the meadows so watch carefully for flagging tape and cut trees. Having a GPS file as a backup is handy!
The trail levels out temporarily in the east basin as it passes through alpine meadows, then watch carefully as it begins ascending, cutting south-west to gain a ridge as it heads to the East Summit.
Reach the top of the East Summit after 5.2km with views all around. We hiked on a smoky day, but normally you can gaze down to Kootenay Lake far below, with familiar peaks all around. Looking ahead to the west, you can see your route as it will trace the ridge. You’ll have the option to go all the way around and hike the West Summit, or take a connector trail down from the col.
Nilsik Notch
Continue down from the East Summit, heading northwest on a well-marked trail. Poles are helpful on the descent, but this section isn’t too technical.
At 6.3km, reach the lowest point on the ridgeline nicknamed the “Nilsik Notch” and another faint junction. The Connector Trail heads south, skipping the West Summit and offering an easier option.
West Summit Scramble
Continuing onto the West Summit, watch carefully as the trail ascends and then crosses a large rockslide, looking for cairns as it angles west across the boulders. Hike carefully to cross the rocks. Watch for the trail cut into the slope on the other side of the rockslide, continuing up to gain the west ridge.
As you continue along the ridge, the trail begins to feel airy with steep drops along the right and sometimes the left too. While it’s not technical, hikers should be comfortable with heights. Poles were helpful here too.
Reach the top of the West Summit after 7.2km at 2359m above sea level, with mighty views all around. The granite rock of Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park is on display here too, with many familiar peaks.
The Great Descent
Continuing the loop, descend south on a wonderfully graded ridge. Laneways of rocks have been laid down to help establish the trail, making it easy to follow as well as pleasant to hike.
Reach the meadows in the north basin at 9.3km where the trail levels off and look for a prominent junction where the Connector Trail descends from Nilsik Notch to rejoin the loop. Stay right and continue to descend.
At 9.9km, complete the loop and turn right again to hike back to the trailhead. Complete the trail at 12.3km.
The full loop took us 6.5 hours with short breaks at a moderate pace.
Are you in Kokanee Park for this? Or is it dog friendly?
You are outside of the park boundary, so you can bring your dog, but you should be aware that the West side of the loop has scrambly sections with exposure, including crossing a boulder field. So I would say “dogs not recommended” but it depends on the dog! You can also avoid the West side by using the connector trail to have a shorter day and avoid the more challenging terrain.
Heads up: We attempted the west summit scramble with our dogs. It has very challenging for them we were having to pick them up in sections. Eventually it got to the point where it was too challenging so we ended up back tracking back down to the connector trail. The connector trail was not well marked. Actually it was impossible to follow, very few karens or flagging tape so we ended up bush whacking our way down to the trail that pushes off the West Summit. We had a map with us which was very helpful (that way I knew… Read more »
Thanks for the update! I’ll mark this hike as “dogs not recommended” in the upcoming guidebook. I’ve heard from a couple groups that the connector trail is hard to follow – it’s probably still in development.
We attempted this as a party of 4 very experienced west koot hikers. FYI- we found the hike from nilski notch (bolder field combined with the narrow path approaching the ridge) to the west summit was far to challenging to complete with our dogs (which we anticipated could happen from reading the hike description). We ended up turning around and headed back to the notch to jump on the connector trail that heads through the east basin. Of significant note- we found the connector trail is not well marked and we ended up losing the trail. We lost sign of… Read more »
Glad you made it home safely! Thanks for the update about the connector trail – it’s good to have the backup GPS file to help navigate as I’ve heard from other groups that it isn’t well marked.
the “Connector” Trail is imaginary… a few flags somewhere in the middle, nothing more. Luckily water flows downhill, the day was clear, so a bushwhack through, sometimes magical terrain, got us connected eventually.
Some more visible flagging would help on the east ridge trail just where it steepens for the slog to the summit.
All-in-all, this is a superb trail. . .