Peppers Lake - Aug 25 - 27

mountainpete

Spamicus Eliminatus
Hi all,

You know I rarely post my trips up here, so I thought it was about time that I start :sunflower

The Forestry Trunk Road (also called Highway 940 and 734 in some sections) is, for the most part, a decent gravel road that runs North to South along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta. It threads its way for almost 1000 km and has some spectacular views, amazing rivers and trails full of adventure. There are very few facilities along the road and when it's dry it can be VERY dusty and when it's wet it can get muddy. It also has access to some of the best river flyfishing in Alberta. Just my kind of route... but very hard to describe in just a paragraph. Forget Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper and Waterton. Those are for the tourists, to me, the FTR is the REAL Alberta.

Over the years I have explored many different parts of the road and surrounding routes, but I rarely go too far north of Calgary. Not sure why. I know the area is beautiful, but I just like to go south for some reason.

So, my wife and I started in SW Calgary and worked our way up to Sundre and then over to the FTR. From there drove up the FTR to Peppers Lake, stayed two nights, explored the area and came back to Calgary via Rocky Mountain House. If you zoom out from this map, you will get an idea of the area I am talking about: http://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&z=11&ll=52.070221,-115.708694&spn=0.3212,0.63858&om=1

Peppers Lake was a pretty little Alberta Government maintained campground. Probably about 20 sites in total, pit toilets and that's it. No drinking water was available. The lake was just great - small, calm and full of brook trout. We enjoyed taking the canoe out on it, but I got skunked fishing. The lake was so clear that we could see the fish, but they just wouldn't take anything and when they did hit a fly, I missed them :smilies27 Our campsite was right above the water so we had a great view by the campfire. My wife and I also made Scott's Tequila Cherry Tomatoes - man was that went good with a Rib Steak!

We got a chance to explore some of the 4x4 trails in the area and had a wonderful time. I really do need new tires though. One mud hole was a close call. The highlight for me was the South Ram River. It's a beautiful river that runs through a canyon for a large part of it.

Short little weekend trip, but was it ever nice.

Pete
 

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Scott Brady

Founder
Mmmm, Tequila Tomatoes and Rib Eye :)

The picture of the waterfall is awesome.

Did you have any new gear on this trip that is worth mentioning how it did?
 

mountainpete

Spamicus Eliminatus
The only gear I was really testing was a new Coleman two burner stove - just your simple plain version... The new gear is comming soon. :D
 

mountainpete

Spamicus Eliminatus
Wait a sec... I did try one new thing. I was really simple, but it worked well for me.

My water system has always been pretty simple. I usually carry a mix of Nalgene, Dromedary bags and larger water cubes and fill up along the way when I find a good source. In the past I have used 5 or 6 gallon water cooler type plastic jugs with good success, but they are clumsy to use.

The other day my wife came home with a product like this:

SA0112PLWBd.jpg


it's a really simple pump that attaches to the top of the cooler bottle. I strapped a bottle in the rear drivers corner of the bed and attached the pump. Really simple, but it worked very well during the trip. Since the bottle was strapped in tight I had no issues with it bouncing around on the trails. The water stayed clean and since I wrapped the bottle with a towel, it also stayed decently cool.

That was my El Cheapo Grande water system for the weekend. The best part, is once the bottle is empty you can return it for a refund :friday:
 

Westy

Adventurer
cool water spout device.

May I ask where your wife obtained that??

btw - I cant help but to mention how great those pictures are, and even more so that area.

the Canadian high country is some of my favorite. I am planning another trip for next summer to BC, the Fernie area. It will be a fly fishing expedition for bull trout.
:elkgrin:
 

mountainpete

Spamicus Eliminatus
Westy said:
cool water spout device.

May I ask where your wife obtained that??

btw - I cant help but to mention how great those pictures are, and even more so that area.

the Canadian high country is some of my favorite. I am planning another trip for next summer to BC, the Fernie area. It will be a fly fishing expedition for bull trout.
:elkgrin:

You know I think my wife picked it up at Canadian Tire. Less than $10 I think. I wouldn't doubt you could buy one at Wal-Mart. It's such a simple solution, but you know it just worked.

If you like Bull Trout, come over to Alberta. There are some GREAT bull trout streams. One fisherman posted a pic of a Bully he caught over the weekend on a small creek - 33" 4.5" thick 13 lbs - on a 6 wt rod! The bull trout population has certainly made a comeback since the C&R regulations were put in years ago. Agressive fish too - I have had Bulls take a bite out of smaller fish while I was bringing them in!

The Fernie area is great, but when was the last time you were there? The implemented new "special" regulations about two years ago. Out of province fisherman pay HUGE dollars to fish there now - out of country even more. For me to fish a river in the area of Fernie as an Alberta resident (lakes are different), I would have to pay $20 per DAY per river. So if I wanted to hit two rivers in one day it would be $40. Makes the trips very expensive - especially since you can get some amazing lake fishing close to Kamloops for a relatively cheap $50 a year.

Pete
 

chet

island Explorer
very cool! We hit up the northern portion of the FTR from RMH North to Hinton? A few years ago. Can't remember where it came out. Holy crap we same some cool stuff. some massive mining equipment and some very crazy logging truck drivers! We always try and come home from Edmonton through RMH as its much nicer than the Yellowhead! :elkgrin:
 

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