There are a few different ways you can do this hike. We decided to hike up Whistlers mountain from the trailhead. The trailhead for Whistlers hike is just after the old HI Hostel but before the lower station for the Jasper Skytram. My friend Lauren and I have both hiked up Whistlers many times but I have never continued onto Indian Ridge before.
It took us about 2 hours to get up to the Jasper Skytram upper base. From there we continued up to Whistlers summit. The trail gets busy from the tram to the summit as this is a popular tourist attraction. The trail continues after the summit and Indian Ridge/Peak will be on your lookers left from the summit. The trail annoyingly goes down to an alpine meadow and then back up towards the ridge. It was extremely hot when we were hiking so we took lots of breaks in the shade of the snowpacks to let our two dogs cool down. The final push towards the summit turns into a scramble for a short section. Push through this short scramble and you will be treated with fantastic views of the valley behind the ridge.
We ran into a couple who had done the full ridge hike that morning and they said that the view from Indian ridge was the best part of the day. I honestly didn’t even know that you could do a full traverse of the ridgeline but I’m glad that we saw the highlight of their day without all of the suffering that might have been involved.
Scrambling down the short scramble section was a little difficult with the dogs but once we were off that bit it is smooth sailing from there. We took the tram down because in 2020 locals get the tram down for free. However, if you do not live in Jasper and have hiked up you can get the tram for half price. Which is a great deal as it saves you a lot of time and saves your knees!
