Roche Bonhomme is a popular scramble with the locals of Jasper. Not much information available on the net before now about the ascent trail. That is probably because the ascent trail is essentially impossible to follow. There was a forest fire some years back that left tons of deadwood lying around covering the trail further up. To make matters worse there are a lot of Christmas trees growing amongst the deadwood now. I started following a marked trail near the entrance to the Maligne Canyon parking lot until it split into two trails both returning downhill that led nowhere. From there I bushwhacked to the top. It took me 9 hours total including chilling out at the summit. Bob Spirko claims to have followed a good trail all the way up. So maybe they made a new trail much better than the one I tried to follow. You can read his report here. Below is the full account of my ascent.
After 2 hard scrambles complete with lots of bushwhacking, I was interested in something easier. So Roche Bonhomme seemed to fit the bill. I vaguely remembered that the start of the trail was somewhere near the Maligne Canyon parking lot. I had been there before looking for it. So I definitely knew which trail it wasn't. The trail leading out the North East side of the parking lot is the Overlander Trail, not the ascent trail. I found a trail closer to the entrance of the parking lot near some horse posts. I followed it up the forest. There was occasional flagging on the trail which was encouraging. Unfortunately at one point the trail forked and both sides led downhill where I already came from. So I bushwhacked the rest of the way. The forest had a lot of deadwood in it. After I got a good way up I reached a field full of Christmas trees with deadwood on the bottom. There had been a fire some number of years back that severely obscurred the ascent trail and now I had to find my way through charred deadfall. Most of the time the deadfall was pretty manageable, but every now and then the Christmas trees made it miserable. When I finally made it out of the Christmas trees, I still had a lot of forest with deadfall to navigate through. I actually found a cairn which was very encouraging.
Once on the upper slopes it was nice and open, and the summit ridge was not far away. The summit ridge was a very pleasant hike with one small section of moderate scrambling. There was some colourful cloth on the summit cairn tied together in a chain. I didn't find a summit register. I stuck around for about an hour admiring the gorgeous view and taking lots of photos before heading back down.
I wasn't able to find the cairn again on the way down. Fortunately I was able to find a well used trail right before the Christmas trees started. It led me left around the Christmas trees at first. The trail was much steeper than the route I took up, with some careful hands on sections. There was a small canyon with a stream running through it next to the trail that looked neat. Unfortunately, once the trail entered the Christmas trees it became impossible to follow. I lost it and ended up bushwhacking again. The slope of the mountain pointed away from the parking lot to the North West and as a result I got lost in the forest. After awhile of mindlessly plodding through the forest, I found a real trail. There were many animal trails that paralleled the mountain that led nowhere, so I was very grateful to find a human trail. I guessed that I was on the Overlander Trail and thus too far to the right of the parking lot, so I headed left. I made it back after 9 hours of fun bushwhacking

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