A Canadian Hillbilly and his travels

I am glad you are enjoying them!

 

We topped out well over 8500’ at the glacier.

 

Done exploring for now, we had more trails to cover this weekend!!

 

We headed out to the next destination. Upwards towards a group of turn of the century gold mines.

 

We continued up to the first mine.

 

We played around in the mine for a bit. She’s a hard rock mine, about 200m deep. There’s a few springs flowing out of it. We hung an antique lantern inside, as far as we could, and left it there for future explorers.

 

Done up top, we headed for the valley floor again, where the boys with the older yotes made a mile for home. We had to do a bit of maintenance to the jk as we headed towards the nights camp.

 

We headed upwards again, determined to make camp at the lead queen mine area.

 

We made the the end of the trail, and still had some snow at the top. Even at +18c!!

 

Happy to be out of the trucks and jeeps, we set up camp, got a fire going, and drank beers and swapped bs til far too late!! And the stars. Do I ever need a better camera!

 

And woke up to a beautiful summer long weekend morning.

 

The on site facilities were spectacular!! Plenty of breeze to keep things fresh, an amazing view, and the porcupines heartily approve too!!

 

We enjoyed our breakfast, our coffee and good company, knowing that we had to head for civilization and work once we fired up the vehicles

 

We headed back up towards the lake quick, not wanting to head down quite yet.

 

We played around a bit. There is a little more trail up here, but it’s rough. Next summer I’ll head right for the top. There’s another mine adit up there.

 

Sadly, we started to lose elevation, and turned the wheels towards home.

 

Only accessible a couple months of the year, and definitely one of my favourite spots. This is where my ashes will be spread.

 

And that was it!! My favourite trip of the summer. Possibly my favourite wheeling trip ever, with spectacular scenery, great friends, excellent beer, and perfect summer weather!

 

I took mama bear out, and we headed up the ice fields parkway, towards Jasper. We hit up sunwapta falls, tangle falls, and took in the glaciers, before heading home again. Really thankful for this woman, she puts up with my exploring and wheeling!

 

Come September, I took the 2nd oldest, and he and I headed for grande cache, and met up with some good friends for some exploring in the Alberta Rockies.