Fri. 7 May: Blackstone LookoutOne long active day! A very early start from Calgary put me in Rocky Mountain House before 7 a.m. and in Nordegg by 8 o’clock. I filled up with gas at the general store in this ramshackle collection of buildings that makes up the village of Nordegg.
The young bearded guy at the store told me that the Forestry Trunk Road was in good shape, after the recent snow. So I headed west out onto the main Highway 11, then north onto the Forestry Road.
Damp and muddy on the edges, but firm in the middle, this road climbed over a low pass, then through gently rolling forests. About 40 km up the road I came to a tiny campsite at Brown Creek. This is where my hike would start. But where was the fire road gate? I drove up and down the Forestry road a couple of times before figuring out that the fire access road had been swallowed up by the Suncor gas well road.
The young bearded guy at the store told me that the Forestry Trunk Road was in good shape, after the recent snow. So I headed west out onto the main Highway 11, then north onto the Forestry Road.
Damp and muddy on the edges, but firm in the middle, this road climbed over a low pass, then through gently rolling forests. About 40 km up the road I came to a tiny campsite at Brown Creek. This is where my hike would start. But where was the fire road gate? I drove up and down the Forestry road a couple of times before figuring out that the fire access road had been swallowed up by the Suncor gas well road.
A slightly uninteresting wide, muddy road leaves the Forestry Road about 600 m north of the campsite, climbing up the hillsides until at a junction, the old fire road reappears, with its locked gate.
A gentle walk up through the trees, on a trail which by now was generally snow-covered, led me fairly quickly up the side of a forested ridge and onto the top of the hill. Here sits Blackstone fire lookout. I stood at the gate for quite a while, hoping that someone might allow me up to the lookout itself. Just as I was about to give up and turn around, a friendly English voice called out that I should “come on through!”, and I walked up the road to shake hands with Hazel the Lookout.
In her early 50’s, but looking younger than that, and wearing glasses, Hazel gave me a friendly greeting. “I never get any visitors up here”, she told me – apart from an occasional quad driven by local gas well workers who would proudly show her which were their wells! Also recently several forestry vehicles had been up the hill to do some tree and brush clearing around the lookout. She said the hill was full of vehicles for a day!
I ended up spending well over an hour chatting away. And why not - she goes for weeks on end without seeing anyone at all. She told me she had arrived up there in late April.
She led me up the short ladder from her living area directly up into the observation cupola, with its grand all-round views.
Here she showed me some of the tools of the lookout’s trade; the circular map and telescope in the centre of this tiny 10ft by 10 ft space; the points of the compass marked on the walls above the windows. One might think that NW should be N, but the mountains run in a SE to NW direction, so a northern view actually looks out onto the rolling foothills.
A fold-down map shows the circular field of view of her lookout and that of her neighbours, Lovett to the NW, Baldy to the S, and Aurora to the E. The map is divided into numbered squares, and then a smaller plastic template is used to divide each of these larger squares into tiny grids. This is how the lookout identifies which GPS zone a fire is in. Accurately locating a fire is apparently a very tricky job, which is why lookouts work in groups of three, for triangulation purposes. She reckoned that her husband was one of the best fire locators, largely due to his navigation training – having been a ship’s captain before taking to the life of a fire lookout. Quite a contrast in occupations!
But as Hazel told me, modern technology hasn’t yet caught up with the lookout system, and much of the fire observation is done with pins and string! There were dozens of little pins stuck into the map, each pin representing a gas flare. This whole area is covered by gas wells, all connected by underground pipelines. So at night, Hazel sees a world full of bright lights – but they are flares not houses.
We identified the locations of a half dozen other lookouts in view from Blackstone, some as far away as 65 km. To the west, the snowy mountains formed a wall, with Blackstone Gap being one way through it, and Chungo Mountain prominent – there is apparently an abandoned lookout building on Chungo, a very remote location.
Hazel’s husband is the lookout at Baseline, just out of sight far to the south. One could make out static voices on her radio, as messages were passed from one tower to another, and with base in Rocky Mountain House. The conversation told of an attempt today to place three women observers onto their remote peaks by helicopter – I later learned that they were successful (Limestone, Cline and Falls). Her neighbour, 40 km to the east at Aurora, a young woman, called her to say she was climbing up into her lookout tower – a hundred foot climb up an exterior ladder. Hazel made a note in her log.
Hazel is a very pragmatic person, and told me that she has no problems welcoming hikers up to the lookout. Why, she told me, would someone hike all the way up to a remote fire lookout with any evil intentions. And of course in my view she is exactly right. And she herself, as she told me, is a keen hiker.
There is a fairly strict hierarchy of lookout observers based on seniority. Lookouts generally spend about five months on duty but this can vary depending on conditions (fire hazards and so on).
Eventually I decided to say goodbye. So after she took a photo of me by the lookout, I was off down the trail at a good pace. In no time I was back at the car having seen no other person, or even any animals, on this trip.
A very easy drive back down the Forestry Road, meeting only one other vehicle, and I was soon setting up camp in an empty Upper Shunda Creek campsite. Well, empty apart from a very pleasant couple, Linda and Gordon Latter, who looked after the site from their trailer home. And I mean “looked after” - despite Gordon having an artificial leg. Linda apparently places hanging plants around the campsite in summer, and even now has little pots of artificial flowers in some sites. Altogether a very well-loved and comfortable, yet small, campsite. I was the only other person staying there as far as I could see. However, Linda said that it gets over-run in the summer.
Fri. 7 May (continued): Baldy Lookout
Having set up camp at Upper Shunda by 2 p.m., I was still up for more hiking – perhaps not realizing what I was letting myself in for. This next planned hike was Baldy Mountain (also called Shunda Mountain), which rises steeply above the campsite.
A rough road – the fire lookout access road - runs up through the trees at an ever-increasing angle, up a valley, with the mountain sloping steeply up to the left of the road. Across to the right is equally impressive Coliseum Mountain, once the site of the fire lookout before it was moved across to Shunda/Baldy. Very soon I ran into snow, and perhaps rather recklessly continued to drive up the hill, following the tracks of a previous vehicle. After a little over 5 km, my better judgment reasserted itself and I carefully turned the car around, making sure that the snow was not hiding a deep ditch!
Almost immediately a truck followed by two quads came racing up the road, and with a cheery grin, the drivers kept on going round the corner and up the hill. Here at the start of my hike, there was already 6 inches of snow on the road, so I put on my MIRCOspikes, for the second time today, as they were equally handy on the slippery snow and mud of Blackstone trail. I also carried my snowshoes on this trip, and within a kilometer, when I left the final quad tracks behind, I put on the ‘shoes and wore them the rest of the way up and back down. I had by that time met the guys coming back down the trail, they having only made it a few hundred yards further than my own stopping place.
After a steep kilometer or so, I passed the open fire gate, which is the official start to this hike according to my guidebook. Then it got even steeper.
This was a gruelling trip, perhaps one of the toughest I had done for a long while. Part of that might be that this was my second trip of a long day, but the main problem was the increasingly deep snow cover. The day before, a couple of people had hiked down this trail from the top, their footprints visible all the way up. But nobody had tried going up the relentlessly steep road. Without snowshoes it would have been impossible. Luckily the snow was generally firm enough to avoid my sinking in, as its depth exceeded 2 or 3 feet. But there were some places where I did sink in a little, and this made it very hard work.
I kept going, round the switchbacks, slowly making my way, and mentally prepared to take as long as I needed – given the long hours of daylight. Finally I came out of the trees and ahead was another hillside! This was a bare, flat hill, on top of which stood several tall communication towers, and one lonely lookout building.
Here the snow had drifted across the road, making the going a little tricky. But eventually I rounded the hill, and up onto the flat top. Beyond the antenna towers the lookout building stood all alone, raised above the hilltop on sturdy steel piles.
A friendly wave from the lookout told me I was welcome. So I walked the final few yards to be greeted by the well-known lookout Joe, known locally as Grandpa Joe, whose name was familiar to me from my chat to Sharon at Bluehill Lookout a few weeks ago. He could tell I was somewhat worn out, and very kindly said that I had better come in and relax for a while.
He sat me down in his comfy armchair and proceeded to provide me with a wonderful slide show on his large computer screen. These were pictures he had taken up on Baldy but also elsewhere around Western Canada. Some fabulous sunrises, and lots of photos of his grandchildren, other family members, and visitors to the lookout – who apparently number from 1700 to 2000 in a typical year – including many who come up every year and now bring their kids. In summer he can drive his car all the way up the steep road.
Some of his photos told the story of a large truck, carrying sections of communication tower, which rolled back down the hill and flipped over completely upside down. It took a large caterpillar tractor (Cat) to drag it off the hill. Joe had told them they needed a double axel but they figured “what did he know” and found out the hard way that he was right. A large cement truck even made it up the hill, pulled by a Cat. These communications towers are huge structures, and needed deep foundations. They belong to the cell-phone companies I think, and are major relay stations.
The lookout itself is only four years old, and has some nice wooden decking and stairs, prefabricated in Rocky Mountain House or Nordegg and brought up the hill in sections. The original lookout was much closer to the tall masts. Joe took me up to the spacious 10 ft by 10 ft cupola above the living area, accessed by an outside staircase. The views from here were breathtaking, especially westwards into the heart of the Rockies, with Abraham Lake clearly visible. Shunda (Baldy) lookout is apparently the highest lookout in Canada which has a weather station. There are other higher lookouts but too high apparently to be of use for weather station purposes.
Joe, before he became a lookout 19 years ago, used to be a cowboy living in central southern BC. When I told him I had a GPS for a little additional peace of mind, he told me he never worried about getting lost, and the secret was never to panic. There was always a road or a river which would lead to safety. He told me he has a pet fox which is as friendly as a dog! His slide show included some nice pictures of the fox at his door.
His nice warm cabin soon revived me, and so after we had visited the cupola, and he had taken a photo of me up there, I started back down the hill. What awesome people these lookouts are. Gracious hosts but hard-working and skilled protectors of our environment. Thank you Joe and Hazel.
The return journey was an entirely easier exercise. In fact, it was an enjoyable trip striding down the steep snowy trail with full confidence in the traction provided by my snowshoes.
Once back at the car, I carefully navigated the slippery road back down to the campsite. By then it was close to 7 p.m.
I started a good fire, and made myself a bowl of chunky chicken noodle soup which was a bit light on the chicken.
This was a very quiet campsite, set in the trees. I saw my first mosquito of the season but it was a brave and probably short-lived insect given the cold temperatures. The skies had been gradually clearing this evening, and with that, the already cool temperatures were dropping rapidly. I crawled gratefully into my sleeping bag, tucked three warm blankets around me, and fell asleep in no time at all.
Statistics
Total for both hikes
Fri. 7 May
Total Dist. 18.2 km
Height Gain 2400 ft.
Max. Elev. 6831 ft.
Time on Trail 6 hr. 51 mins.
(incl. 2 hrs.4 min. at tops chatting to lookouts!)
A gentle walk up through the trees, on a trail which by now was generally snow-covered, led me fairly quickly up the side of a forested ridge and onto the top of the hill. Here sits Blackstone fire lookout. I stood at the gate for quite a while, hoping that someone might allow me up to the lookout itself. Just as I was about to give up and turn around, a friendly English voice called out that I should “come on through!”, and I walked up the road to shake hands with Hazel the Lookout.
In her early 50’s, but looking younger than that, and wearing glasses, Hazel gave me a friendly greeting. “I never get any visitors up here”, she told me – apart from an occasional quad driven by local gas well workers who would proudly show her which were their wells! Also recently several forestry vehicles had been up the hill to do some tree and brush clearing around the lookout. She said the hill was full of vehicles for a day!
I ended up spending well over an hour chatting away. And why not - she goes for weeks on end without seeing anyone at all. She told me she had arrived up there in late April.
She led me up the short ladder from her living area directly up into the observation cupola, with its grand all-round views.
Here she showed me some of the tools of the lookout’s trade; the circular map and telescope in the centre of this tiny 10ft by 10 ft space; the points of the compass marked on the walls above the windows. One might think that NW should be N, but the mountains run in a SE to NW direction, so a northern view actually looks out onto the rolling foothills.
A fold-down map shows the circular field of view of her lookout and that of her neighbours, Lovett to the NW, Baldy to the S, and Aurora to the E. The map is divided into numbered squares, and then a smaller plastic template is used to divide each of these larger squares into tiny grids. This is how the lookout identifies which GPS zone a fire is in. Accurately locating a fire is apparently a very tricky job, which is why lookouts work in groups of three, for triangulation purposes. She reckoned that her husband was one of the best fire locators, largely due to his navigation training – having been a ship’s captain before taking to the life of a fire lookout. Quite a contrast in occupations!
But as Hazel told me, modern technology hasn’t yet caught up with the lookout system, and much of the fire observation is done with pins and string! There were dozens of little pins stuck into the map, each pin representing a gas flare. This whole area is covered by gas wells, all connected by underground pipelines. So at night, Hazel sees a world full of bright lights – but they are flares not houses.
We identified the locations of a half dozen other lookouts in view from Blackstone, some as far away as 65 km. To the west, the snowy mountains formed a wall, with Blackstone Gap being one way through it, and Chungo Mountain prominent – there is apparently an abandoned lookout building on Chungo, a very remote location.
Hazel’s husband is the lookout at Baseline, just out of sight far to the south. One could make out static voices on her radio, as messages were passed from one tower to another, and with base in Rocky Mountain House. The conversation told of an attempt today to place three women observers onto their remote peaks by helicopter – I later learned that they were successful (Limestone, Cline and Falls). Her neighbour, 40 km to the east at Aurora, a young woman, called her to say she was climbing up into her lookout tower – a hundred foot climb up an exterior ladder. Hazel made a note in her log.
Hazel is a very pragmatic person, and told me that she has no problems welcoming hikers up to the lookout. Why, she told me, would someone hike all the way up to a remote fire lookout with any evil intentions. And of course in my view she is exactly right. And she herself, as she told me, is a keen hiker.
There is a fairly strict hierarchy of lookout observers based on seniority. Lookouts generally spend about five months on duty but this can vary depending on conditions (fire hazards and so on).
Eventually I decided to say goodbye. So after she took a photo of me by the lookout, I was off down the trail at a good pace. In no time I was back at the car having seen no other person, or even any animals, on this trip.
A very easy drive back down the Forestry Road, meeting only one other vehicle, and I was soon setting up camp in an empty Upper Shunda Creek campsite. Well, empty apart from a very pleasant couple, Linda and Gordon Latter, who looked after the site from their trailer home. And I mean “looked after” - despite Gordon having an artificial leg. Linda apparently places hanging plants around the campsite in summer, and even now has little pots of artificial flowers in some sites. Altogether a very well-loved and comfortable, yet small, campsite. I was the only other person staying there as far as I could see. However, Linda said that it gets over-run in the summer.
Fri. 7 May (continued): Baldy Lookout
Having set up camp at Upper Shunda by 2 p.m., I was still up for more hiking – perhaps not realizing what I was letting myself in for. This next planned hike was Baldy Mountain (also called Shunda Mountain), which rises steeply above the campsite.A rough road – the fire lookout access road - runs up through the trees at an ever-increasing angle, up a valley, with the mountain sloping steeply up to the left of the road. Across to the right is equally impressive Coliseum Mountain, once the site of the fire lookout before it was moved across to Shunda/Baldy. Very soon I ran into snow, and perhaps rather recklessly continued to drive up the hill, following the tracks of a previous vehicle. After a little over 5 km, my better judgment reasserted itself and I carefully turned the car around, making sure that the snow was not hiding a deep ditch!
Almost immediately a truck followed by two quads came racing up the road, and with a cheery grin, the drivers kept on going round the corner and up the hill. Here at the start of my hike, there was already 6 inches of snow on the road, so I put on my MIRCOspikes, for the second time today, as they were equally handy on the slippery snow and mud of Blackstone trail. I also carried my snowshoes on this trip, and within a kilometer, when I left the final quad tracks behind, I put on the ‘shoes and wore them the rest of the way up and back down. I had by that time met the guys coming back down the trail, they having only made it a few hundred yards further than my own stopping place.
After a steep kilometer or so, I passed the open fire gate, which is the official start to this hike according to my guidebook. Then it got even steeper.
This was a gruelling trip, perhaps one of the toughest I had done for a long while. Part of that might be that this was my second trip of a long day, but the main problem was the increasingly deep snow cover. The day before, a couple of people had hiked down this trail from the top, their footprints visible all the way up. But nobody had tried going up the relentlessly steep road. Without snowshoes it would have been impossible. Luckily the snow was generally firm enough to avoid my sinking in, as its depth exceeded 2 or 3 feet. But there were some places where I did sink in a little, and this made it very hard work.
I kept going, round the switchbacks, slowly making my way, and mentally prepared to take as long as I needed – given the long hours of daylight. Finally I came out of the trees and ahead was another hillside! This was a bare, flat hill, on top of which stood several tall communication towers, and one lonely lookout building.
Here the snow had drifted across the road, making the going a little tricky. But eventually I rounded the hill, and up onto the flat top. Beyond the antenna towers the lookout building stood all alone, raised above the hilltop on sturdy steel piles.
A friendly wave from the lookout told me I was welcome. So I walked the final few yards to be greeted by the well-known lookout Joe, known locally as Grandpa Joe, whose name was familiar to me from my chat to Sharon at Bluehill Lookout a few weeks ago. He could tell I was somewhat worn out, and very kindly said that I had better come in and relax for a while.
He sat me down in his comfy armchair and proceeded to provide me with a wonderful slide show on his large computer screen. These were pictures he had taken up on Baldy but also elsewhere around Western Canada. Some fabulous sunrises, and lots of photos of his grandchildren, other family members, and visitors to the lookout – who apparently number from 1700 to 2000 in a typical year – including many who come up every year and now bring their kids. In summer he can drive his car all the way up the steep road.
Some of his photos told the story of a large truck, carrying sections of communication tower, which rolled back down the hill and flipped over completely upside down. It took a large caterpillar tractor (Cat) to drag it off the hill. Joe had told them they needed a double axel but they figured “what did he know” and found out the hard way that he was right. A large cement truck even made it up the hill, pulled by a Cat. These communications towers are huge structures, and needed deep foundations. They belong to the cell-phone companies I think, and are major relay stations.
The lookout itself is only four years old, and has some nice wooden decking and stairs, prefabricated in Rocky Mountain House or Nordegg and brought up the hill in sections. The original lookout was much closer to the tall masts. Joe took me up to the spacious 10 ft by 10 ft cupola above the living area, accessed by an outside staircase. The views from here were breathtaking, especially westwards into the heart of the Rockies, with Abraham Lake clearly visible. Shunda (Baldy) lookout is apparently the highest lookout in Canada which has a weather station. There are other higher lookouts but too high apparently to be of use for weather station purposes.
Joe, before he became a lookout 19 years ago, used to be a cowboy living in central southern BC. When I told him I had a GPS for a little additional peace of mind, he told me he never worried about getting lost, and the secret was never to panic. There was always a road or a river which would lead to safety. He told me he has a pet fox which is as friendly as a dog! His slide show included some nice pictures of the fox at his door.
His nice warm cabin soon revived me, and so after we had visited the cupola, and he had taken a photo of me up there, I started back down the hill. What awesome people these lookouts are. Gracious hosts but hard-working and skilled protectors of our environment. Thank you Joe and Hazel.
The return journey was an entirely easier exercise. In fact, it was an enjoyable trip striding down the steep snowy trail with full confidence in the traction provided by my snowshoes.
Once back at the car, I carefully navigated the slippery road back down to the campsite. By then it was close to 7 p.m.
I started a good fire, and made myself a bowl of chunky chicken noodle soup which was a bit light on the chicken.
This was a very quiet campsite, set in the trees. I saw my first mosquito of the season but it was a brave and probably short-lived insect given the cold temperatures. The skies had been gradually clearing this evening, and with that, the already cool temperatures were dropping rapidly. I crawled gratefully into my sleeping bag, tucked three warm blankets around me, and fell asleep in no time at all.
Statistics
Total for both hikes
Fri. 7 May
Total Dist. 18.2 km
Height Gain 2400 ft.
Max. Elev. 6831 ft.
Time on Trail 6 hr. 51 mins.
(incl. 2 hrs.4 min. at tops chatting to lookouts!)
2 comments:
I LOVE that Mountain!! I was Lookout on Mt Baldy in the Summer of '79.... GLORIOUS!
Hi Diane, thanks so much for your comment. The Lookouts on those mountains do an awesome job and it was always a privilege to meet them and to learn a little of their work.
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