The Ridge Lakes are found on a plateau above Lac le Jeune.   We have been hiking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, and mountain biking to the area for decades.    We used to either climb up past the Lac le Jeune ski hills or up the Ridge Lakes FSR, but a single track trail from the end of Lac le Jeune Drive is now the route we use.   A single track trail starts at the gate.  There are side trails that head over to the Gus Johnson Trail, but we stay right and turn right after stomping for 0.5 km, at a junction just past a small pond.

The trail climbs for about an hour over top of the ridge through lodgepole forest and a firebreak before dropping to the Ridge Lakes.

There are two lakes and smaller ponds in the Ridge Creek drainage.   Our route took us to the smaller East Ridge Lake,

Everything was very quiet up at 1475m (4850 feet).   There were some older snowmobile tracks in the area, but no snowshoe tracks and we were breaking trail for much of the route.

We followed an old track that heads for the top of the Lac le Jeune Ski Hill, but then turned northeast on the fireline cutblock to rejoin our snowshoe track for a lollipop-shaped loop route.   At the bottom of the hill, we passed by the small ponds to return to our parked vehicles, a 3 hour outing.

More information on the trail location can be found on a previous post:

• Ridge Lakes Loop