I completed the Crowsnest High Five at 6:46AM on 30 September 2025 finishing in a time of 26h 46m 05s.
Starting at spry running store in downtown Blairmore at 4:00AM on September 29th, I made my way to Mount Coulthard utilizing a series of mountain bike and ATV trails. Jamie Lowe-Wylde met me approximately 8km into the route to join for the first summit. A spectacular sunrise greeted us at the first summit around 7:00AM. We made quick work of the descent and headed Northwest toward Mount Tecumseh following the same ATV trails. At this point, I said goodbye to Jamie and made my way to Highway 3 crossing at Tecumseh road where I would meet my partner, Kirsti Dolson, to resupply for the next summit.
I believe it is important to note that I was unable to follow the more direct route between Mount Coulthard and Mount Tecumseh as outlined in the provided .GPX file due to an ongoing search for a missing child in the area of the 7 bridges trail and the Phillips Pass Road access to Tecumseh trailhead. This required an approximately 12km detour and some bushwhacking to avoid disrupting the search area. The access wasn't ideal, but it also wasn't too challenging (by comparison to the rest of the day). Ian Lowe-Wylde met me at the base of Tecumseh to join me on the route that he knew quite well, having several summits under his belt this year alone.
After successful completion of Mount Tecumseh, I made my way through a series of multi-use trails over to Atlas Staging area where I would meet Kirsti again for a resupply. Kirsti joined me for the ascent of Crowsnest Mountain where we were faced with a brief, spontaneous rainstorm. Kirsti remained behind and I persevered despite the suboptimal conditions to summit Crowsnest Mountain just before 6pm.
After descending Crowsnest Mountain, we resupplied again as we passed through Atlas Staging Area and I then made the long solo run through the valley and across town via the community trail to spry running store where I would meet up with Kyle Ross and Skylar Roth-MacDonald for the next summit. Together we made our Turtle Mountain trailhead where we would meet Kirsti for a quick resupply and onto the trail. The scramble connecting the Turtle false summit with the true summit turned out to be a greater challenge than I had anticipated, taking me nearly 50 minutes in each direction. With much encouragement I made my way down from the summit and into town where we would meet Kirsti for the final resupply shortly after 3:00am, 23 hours after I set off the morning prior.
Moving on to the final mountain at approximately 3:30AM, joined by Kyle Ross, we opted to take the longer route up Bluff Mountain hoping for some relief from the brutally steep climbs, but I am not certain it was any easier than my original plan. We reached the final summit just after 5:30AM and took the most direct route down the mountain finishing the final decent in just over 1 hour.
There is definitely a lot to be improved upon from my route. Specifically, I would start with Crowsnest Mountain and connect the following mountains in a more direct way. I look forward to sharing my notes with the next person that wants to give the Crowsnest High Five a try.