Vision Quest Ridge is a long ridge that extends North from the David Thompson Highway. Most people only ascent to the top of the first peak and then return back down. The ridge however has many peaks each of which is higher than the previous one as you traverse North along it. It took me 11 hours to traverse the whole thing and return back. The further along you go the more advanced the scrambling becomes. Definitely one of the most enjoyable scrambles I have done. Below is my complete account of the adventure.

I drove down to David Thompson Country the previous day after 3 days of scrambling in Jasper for a change of scenery. I was tired and wasn't able to wake up until 8am when the sun heated up my tent. The controlled burns in the upper David Thompson Valley limited my options for scrambles with non smoky views. I eventually decided to head up to the true summit of Vision Quest Ridge. I had heard that the true summit was way back and thus would hopefully be far away from the smoke. When I was told that the summit was way back, I had no idea just how far back it really was. There were at least a dozen summits that I had to pass before I reached the true summit. Each summit looked like it would definitely be the highest one. At least until I reached the top of it and saw the next summit.
The further back I got the more challenging the scrambling and route finding got. At one point I passed a cool natural rock bridge that I took some pictures of. On the way back I explored it more thoroughly. At one peak I failed to find a safe route up and had to go around it on the left. It had huge overhanging cliffs on the left side that reminded me of the upper rock faces on Dolomite Peak. This route unfortunately required me to lose and regain some elevation. Once past it I found some real good scrambling in places while I ascended back to the ridge to gain the next summit. This summit also turned out to be a false summit. The next summit thankfully was the real deal. It also required a bit of fun scrambling to reach.
Once on the true summit, I had a wonderful view of peaks I had never seen before to the North and West, as well as some I have seen before like Mount Cline. The ridge continued North, but also branched back to the highway in a loop. This branch had Allstones Peak as its highpoint. So some people could claim that Allstones Peak is the true summit of Vision Quest Ridge. I doubt that many people would make that claim. Given more time it looked like I could probably follow the loop all the way back to the highway. Since I had reached turn around time and I didn't know if the loop would go I turned around.
On the way back I noticed that there were some routes that would probably work up to the summit that I had skipped. These would save a good amount of time if anyone used them instead of my route. To the East thunderstorms pounded Nordegg but seemed to ignore the mountains entirely. This was good as there is no easy way off of Vision Quest Ridge. One could descend into the valley on the West side, but I have been told that it is very miserable bushwhacking that doesn't save you anytime. So unless lightning is imminent, stay on the ridge on the way back.
This was a very fun long scramble. There is hardly any part of the climb that doesn't have great views. I would totally do this again with a group to get some cool scrambling shots.
My consecutive days of scrambling ended as the next day I woke up to rain and a low cloud ceiling that persisted throughout the day.

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