A Canadian Hillbilly and his travels

Made a stop at hummingbird falls, and then bee-lined it for Calgary. I dropped peter off at Dave’s place, the man with the broken T4R, where peter discovered he’d lost his keys. I gracefully exited stage left, as I still had to head two hours north, to red deer.

 

Late June, we headed to the east kootenays. We were scouting a trail we’d first put tires on 5 years ago, and have been trying to finish ever since. The trail has fallen into serious disrepair, with rock slide and avalanches taking their toll on it.

 

We woke up to a beautiful morning, packed up, and head up trail.

 

We worked our way up the trail, making progress thru areas we’d put effort and trail repair into over the past few years. And then we found snow. A nice big chunk of leftover avalanche detritus, blocking’s our forward progress. We walked a ways up the trail, and found more, so we made the decision to turn back, and leave the trail for later in the summer. Bruce creek trail 5, us, 0.

 

This was our view up the valley. Late June. We decided we’d return later in the summer.

 

We made our way out of the valley

 

We left the horsethief fsr behind, and headed for frances creek fsr.

 

And skunked again!! We found snow right at the top of the climb into the lower basin. And nothing but snow ahead, with no way to make it to where we wanted to be, we once again, turned around, knowing we’d be back.

 

I have been into the Flathead valley but that is pretty much the extent, FSR roads into there are pretty easy compared to the trails you guys are hitting!

 

Flathead, down crowsnest/sparwood area?

 

We did a trip from Canmore to Whitefish on backroads, went from Elkford up towards elk pass and then south of Fernie drove into the Wigwam Fsr, camped around Butts cabin.
My buddies were mountain biking from Banff to Whitefish down the divide route and I used my truck as support vehicle, carried the camping gear and bbq.

 

Awesome!! I was down there at thanksgiving, those pictures will be up sometime in the near future. Can't wait to get back down there!

 

You definitely use your truck offroad! I need to suck it up and not worry about pinstripes

 

The fact that it’s older helps. Going to a pretty nice looking double cab for the coming season is making me armour her up a lot better than last year. I’d like to not dent the hell out of it! This truck wasn’t a concern, as she was dented up pretty good to start with

 

We headed back down the old mine access road, as there was nowhere higher to camp, and the sky was threatening us with something that could’ve made the trip down impossible. There were some brief flurries up there, and the last thing I wanted was to be trapped by snow. The road is getting a little rough, common theme out this way, where operations ended 4-6 decades ago. We set up at the cabin seen in the previous post for the night, not in the cabin, but in the yard. It’s a trappers cabin, with an active trap line attached to the lease. And what a piece of heaven it is. I could happily stay here for the rest of my life.

 

We woke up to quite a downpour, and decided that home was calling. We wrapped it up, stopped in radium hot springs and used the car wash to air back up, and cleaned the worst of the mud off the pos. And then we headed east, and homeward.

 

The next run came about in late July. This was a special trip. In Alberta, the last provincial gov’t was the NDP. Deeply socialist. We lost hundreds of trails, and access to the back country by truck, side by side, quads, etc, basically anything that burns gas. With the evicting of them this past year, the new gov’t is interested in (re)opening, and designating trails, so this can’t happen again. I got the call from a buddy who has been so instrumental in my own passion for this sport, and I agreed to head down, and do some trails with him, and some of the Alberta environmental planners. I reached out to @GeoScout and he and his lovely bride joined us, along with some friends with jeeps, and also a buddy with a landcruiser. And a first gen taco. Not sure if he’s here, haven’t found him. We spent a couple days down south, and ran trails that had been closed, with intent to re-open, and maintain them. In the end, we got two of these re-opened, with more to come!!

 

First trail is a shorty, to a real nice lookout

 

Well done sir. I’d would love to tag along to some of those trails this coming summer. My truck is stock. But have been looking into a minor lift hopefully in the spring. How much of these trails are doable with a stock truck?

 

Install a quality set of sliders, a good set of all terrain or mud terrains, and you'll do 70% of these trails. Add a winch bumper, a locker, lift, a 33" tire, 85%. Relegate the truck to trail only status, and quit caring about dents and damage, and you'll be good on almost all!!!

Seriously, you'll be good on most. Your width and length will hang you up on a few tho. Especially the next few trails I'll be posting. And you're welcome to come along, but be warned, There is a lot of pinstriping that happens, and I don't stop for that. It has turned a few people off form wheeling with me!