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
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