Castle Mountain Resort - Huckleberry Fest

Elevation: 1740 m
Elevation Gain: 285 m
The Castle Mountain Resort’s Huckleberry Fest is an annual summer celebration. With live music, entertainment, vendors and chairlift rides, this family-friendly festival attracts more than 1,500 visitors to Haig Ridge’s Huckleberry-filled slopes every year. There are several varieties of huckleberries which grow in abundance in the Rockies and typically ripen in late August. The berries are relatively small (0.5 – 1.0 cm), range from bright red to blue in color, and have a sweet and tart taste similar to that of blueberries.
My Ascents:
August 26 2023
Trailhead: Castle Mountain Ski Resort
GPS Track: Huckleberry Fest Hike

Every year, we wrap up our summer with a big family camping trip 🏕️ during August’s final weekend. Come September, the kids are back in school, and extracurricular activities begin anew, so this weekend is a great chance to spend quality time together before everyone gets busy (and the weather gets cold 🥶). These late summer get-togethers also provide a perfect opportunity to fête 🥳 our middle child Penny, whose birthday falls on the month’s final day. This year, to celebrate the summer and our “Penny Bear”, 🐻 we decided to check out the Castle Mountain Resort’s annual Huckleberry Fest. Since the festival was billed as the “berry best” party around, we were sure that it would make our Penny “beary” happy.

LEFT: At the ski hill’s base, the festival got off to a promising start with one of Penny’s favorites: face-painting!
RIGHT: Of course, the festival’s main attraction is the ride up Haig Ridge’s berry-filled slopes on the “Huckleberry” chairlift. We knew that Penny would love not having to hike up something for once)! When we looked at the festival’s “FAQ” webpage ahead of time, however, we’d noted that infants 👶 weren’t allowed on the chair, so Brianne and I planned accordingly and brought our hiking gear to get 11-month-old Lillian up. While Mera and Penny waited for face-painting with their grandparents, we got off to a head start and agreed to meet everyone at the top of the chairlift in about an hour.

As we hiked up the chairlift’s access road (also the trail for the resort’s “Haig Ridge” hike), we enjoyed fine end-of-summer views towards nearby Southfork Mountain.

Eager to get a workout, Brianne charged up the access road. Indeed, her pace showed no mercy for the person carrying the heavy, infant-laden hiking backpack (me)! 😭 Of course, this lack of sympathy may have had something to do with the fact that she’d carried Lilly up every other hike we’d done this year… 🤔 (thanks “Hon”!)

LEFT and RIGHT: What’s this I spy on the chairlift? An infant on his mom’s lap? 🤔 So much for that “no infants” rule… 🤷 I guess we didn’t have to hike up after all but, who are we kidding, we probably would have anyways! 😂

Brianne fights with her Fitbit (which suddenly stopped tracking her heartrate). Ironically, she ended up getting a crappier workout because she stopped to ensure that her workout was being recorded accurately. 🙄 On the upside, this finally allowed me to catch up and pass the “rocket goat!” 🚀🐐

While our hike up had been largely solitary, we started to run into bigger berry-picking crowds near the top of the chairlift.

Less than an hour after setting off, Brianne, Lilly and I reached the top of the chairlift and were greeted by a pleasant panorama (if you ignore the ski hill infrastructure). To the left, Syncline Mountain was apparent, while Southfork Mountain and Barnaby Ridge filled the view at center and right, respectively. Click to see larger.

After enjoying the views by ourselves for a few minutes, we spied the birthday girl bear 🐻 (along with Grandma and “Grumpo”) as their chair whisked them effortlessly up the mountain.

And on the next chair sat, Mera (accompanied by her Nannie and Papa). While Mera and Papa enjoyed the ride up, the heights proved less agreeable for poor Nannie… 😵😔

The only ones who truly earned their huckleberries by hiking up (except for the baby sleeping in the backpack)!

LEFT and RIGHT: Reunited with us, Mera and Penny were very excited to show off their impressive “Mermaid Princess” face paint. 😍

Nannie enjoys a laugh with her daughter after surviving the vertigo-inducing chairlift. 😵🥰

The whole family poses for a photo On Top of the chairlift (except for Lillian, who was busy trying to steal her big sister’s hat). 😂

LEFT: What goes up, must come down. Luckily for Nannie, she didn’t have to go down the chairlift and got to enjoy a more relaxing hike down with Papa.
RIGHT: With everyone reunited, it was time to let the berry-picking begin! In general, we had the best luck finding berries on the red-tinged bushes but there were a few different species, so it paid to look all over the hillside.

LEFT: The birthday “bear” 🐻 especially enjoyed foraging for berries (but quickly discovered that huckleberries are surprisingly small and don’t offer much of a mouthful)! Still, good things come in small packages and the tiny berries that we did find were a tart-and-tasty hit. 😋
RIGHT: Big sister Mera shows off one of the larger berries. It’s a good thing that we brought a proper lunch to actually fill us up! 😂

Part of the fun of the hike down was the “scavenger hunt” for letters. See if you can solve this word puzzle faster than I did (spoiler alert: I was embarrassingly slow).

Penny lets Grandma in on the secrets of her berry-picking success while hiking back down towards the festival base, which featured bigger, better, colder treats. 😎

Enjoying a pair of those “cold treats” after a busy couple of hours hiking and foraging! 🍻

The rest of the family enjoys festival treats of their own, with live music and plenty of sunshine.

LEFT and RIGHT: Our cutest/littlest huckleberry picker.

After an enjoyable morning and afternoon at the Castle Mountain Resort, we returned to our campground (near the Old Man Dam) to cap the day with a birthday festival of our own! 🎉🎈

LEFT: the 6-year-old of the hour, our Penny Bear! 🐻
RIGHT: … and her loving sisters. 🥰

Gift-opening time (as though huckleberries weren’t present enough already)! 🎁

LEFT: A new doll for the birthday girl!
RIGHT: … and still more birthday treats!

LEFT and RIGHT: Fueled by huckleberries (and other treats 😏), Penny and I kept the party going late into the night. 🥳 Summer evenings like this are “berry” nice, and spending them with our birthday girl is the “beary” best! 🐻❤️