We took the Tonga Ridge Trail #1058 south until it leveled out in a beautiful meadow with very nice fall color and abundant blueberries. There are a few forks along the way, so have a map or GPS. Turn off on the trail to Fisher Lake. As we headed up toward Fisher Lake the trail did get a bit muddy in places, but overall a great trail.
We hiked past Fisher Lake and ran into a backpacker setting up camp at the lake. It seemed like there are only a few camping spots along the lake. Heading SE we crossed the outlet from Fisher Lake and picked up the trail between Fisher and Ptarmigan Lakes. It turns into more of a boot path here (there was some flagging), so navigation is needed. At Lower Ptarmigan Lake (the first one you come to), we had to navigate the rock slide on the NW side of the lake (basically bolder hopping under the cliffs) and then went about a quarter mile up a draw to the upper lake (at this point the trail is gone and good navigation skills are needed).
Follow the terrain to the gap between the two lakes and then head easterly. We took a compass bearing on the northeast ridge of Terrace Mountain and then used that bearing go through a somewhat brushy forest picking the best route, while making sure that we stayed on our bearing. Eventually the terrain opened up into a scree slope that we followed to hit the ridge. Once to the top of the ridge we were rewarded with a beautiful view of the mountains east, Clarice Lake down below and of course Mt. Daniel to the south.
Since we spent a fair amount of time on navigation, we decided to stop at the ridge so we wouldn’t have to hike out in headlamps. I will definitely go back and make another attempt at the summit with an earlier start.
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