A Canadian Hillbilly and his travels

Hey all, I’m Mike from red deer. I’ve been a toyota owner off and on since 1993. Bought my first Toyota then. An 86, regular cab, longbox, 22re. Had a few since then. I got a smoking deal on my ex current truck, and brought it back to life. It was a roll over, and I punched the roof out, and got a windshield into it. It was never written off, and at the time, I had no need of an insurance inspection, so I got it on the road. I’ve built it up a bit, and used it for work, and then this summer, got back to wheeling again. I’ll show off the places I’ve been wheeling this past year. First real trip was into ruby falls. This is a trail that was a Jeep jamboree trail in the 90’s, before they pulled out of Canada. Wasn't a lot of snow when we hit it in January of ‘19.

 

Few more. The 4runner is a sas’d beast, the land cruiser is a buddy of mine. He’s likely here too. It’ll show up again further on. He also owns a bad ass 1st gen taco with a Bob’d box.

 

Yes.

 

Next run was out west of Rocky Mountain house, to play in the snow. We started the day at -26c and by the end of the day we were at +2. Funny how tall and skinny tires, 34x10.5-17” work in loose when you can cut down, but with a couple hours of heat, they ain’t working worth a shit!! I’ve since changed my snow wheeling set up. That shows up later.

 

It looks like some good times! I've got family not too far from you in Three Hills.

 

Nice! That is only a little ways away.

 

Cool dynamic between snow wheeling and those river crossings

 

It’s a lot of fun. But usually requires a day or two in the shop to thaw out post trip!

 

And if any of you have seen the meme out there that somewhere near you, a Canadian is wearing shorts, well, I am living proof of that.

 

Next up was a bit of goofing around, on some old trails I grew up on, west of Rocky Mountain house. I was working out in that area, with some time at nights to do some exploring. I caught these two lynx in the middle of mating. Reminded me of the ex and I in our relationship!!

 

The next rip involved a good friend of mine, over 20 years at this point, and his 4runner. We ran the forestry trunk road from rocky to Calgary. The trunk road is nice and remote, along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.

 

These are some pretty awesome photos. Thanks for sharing.

 

Are those die-downs in the front on your buddy's 4runner?

 

Those are actually a set of limb lifters. A lot of what we run is highly overgrown, so some guys run these to help lift branches and such over the windshield.

 

gotcha makes way more sense now! gotta protect that snorkle.

 

Along the trunk road, there’s a a trail we call the “transalta” road, for the power company that keeps access to the area. This trail and valley would actually lead you thru to lake minnewanka in Banff park, if we weee allowed to traverse it to the end. Minnewanka is a man made dammed lake. This is a seasonal trail, and leads to a really cools waterfall, heavily populated by ice climbers thru the winter. We were just a little off the closure dates, so we couldn’t access the falls.

 

damn straight! That’s expensive plastic mister!!

 

Thank you! And I'm more than happy to! Hope to encourage more people to come explore up here!

 

So, after a bunch of work done to the truck, and some shake down runs, it was finally time to head out for a couple night trip. We chose to start with ruby falls again, as last couple runs had been winter runs, and a nice late spring run would be just the thing to crack the season open, right? Yea. Ok there Mother Nature.

 

June. June. Mid spring. And this is what we found getting into the trail, and climbing in elevation. Snow.