Ram Fire Lookout

Sun. 27 June: Ram Lookout

This remote fire lookout was on my list of “most anticipated hikes” for 2010, and it didn’t disappoint. For a change I did not go alone, this time having my long-time hiking colleague JM along for this trip.

Having someone to chat to in the car certainly makes the time go by faster, so it seemed to take hardly any time at all to drive north up the Cowboy Trail – Highway 22 –to Rocky Mountain House. Being early morning the roads were almost traffic-free, except around Caroline, perhaps because of the traffic generated by the large gas plant in that area.

Just before Rocky Mountain House, we turned west onto a newly-paved highway which quickly took us into the foothills, past a large lake (Cow Lake) and then north for a few more kilometers to the end of the paved road.

The author of “Fire Lookout Hikes” (Mike Potter) makes some comment about half the adventure is getting to the trailhead. This was one of those trips! There were no signposts and my guidebook had not mentioned an eastern access to the start of this hike. But my detailed “Backroad Mapbook” showed a driveable road west into the mountains, so of course I took the gamble. As it turned out, there was a good gravel road, although it was posted as being a controlled logging road, with radios required.

Blissfully ignoring the dangers of being swept off the road by a speeding logging truck, we set out on a 48.5 km drive into the Brazeau Hills. I had carefully calculated this distance to the trailhead, but we were greatly helped by markers by the side of the road every kilometer with the distance on them. These are used by truck drivers to radio their position.

My calculations were spot-on, and right on 48.5 kilometres, we found the little turn-off in the forest beside the road where our hike would start. And just in case we had any doubt, there was a University of Sherbrooke van parked there – my guidebook had explained that there is a long-term project under way on the mountain to monitor bighorn sheep.

Without this pre-planning and reading, it would have been very easy to have missed the trailhead. There were no signs or gates, just a berm across a quad trail leading up onto the forested mountainside, literally right in the middle of nowhere.

So we confidently strode up the trail, on a fairly steep path through the trees. I had imagined that this was going to be a long, hot slog. I was wrong. After a kilometer or so, the trail curved to the left, and took a gentler angle up the mountainside for several kilometers, gradually climbing at a very walkable grade. No views yet, just a green forest and a good trail under foot.

As the trees began to thin out, we passed two quads parked on the side of the trail, at the point where the path reduced to a narrow walking track. This had once been a fire road, but was many years ago reclaimed. Now we were out above the trees heading across a steep open hillside, and up onto the top of the ridge. This was a magnificent place to hike, with views opening up to the Front Ranges and rolling green foothills – magnificent and lonely.

Now for the weary, the view from the ridge top might have been very disheartening. For ahead of us, a bare hillside soared upwards, and on the very top of the distant ridge sat the fire lookout building, looking very remote and high. The long ridge top was lined with snow drifts. But we were not particularly weary, and we felt as if we had entered a magical land. The cloudless sky was dark blue, and the ridge ahead was full of interesting small hilltops and clumps of trees, with the trail snaking upwards towards the lookout. J made good use of his excellent camera to snap the wildflowers which were finally starting to open up after the long, snowy Spring.

Now we left the last tree behind us and climbed up the stony trail which seemed to be heading straight for a huge snowdrift. But as we came to the next level of the ridge, there was a way through the drift and we curved around to the north side of the final hillside. Here were more spectacular ridgelines, with sweeping cliffs and a hidden valley. The road continued to curve to the right, coming up to the lookout building from the east, up a short final grassy hill.

In the warm sunshine today, the little building looked more like a holiday cottage than a rugged fire lookout. Hopefully it is well-anchored for the strong winds which usually blow across this exposed mountaintop. After a minute or so, the door opened, and a young woman wearing a headscarf came out with a clipboard and introduced herself as Joanne, and could we please sign the form. “They’ll be asking for IDs next” she said half-jokingly.

By now the wind had picked up, so she invited us onto the lookout deck out of the wind, and we had a nice chat. She was interested to know where we were from, and seemed to be impressed that we had started in Calgary that morning and it was still not yet 11 am! We were fourth and fifth up there this year. Apparently right up until a few days ago, the snow drift which we had encountered below the final hillside had been of enormous size and had totally blocked all access, so people had come that far then turned around. There are a lot of quad drivers who come up here, evidenced by the trails all over the hillside.

Joanne told us that her dog would usually have greeted us but it had been “mauled by a marmot” and was recovering inside. She is from Halifax and loves the contrast between the Maritime coastlines and the remote Alberta mountaintop. She pointed out the location of the other lookouts: Limestone, Baseline, Baldy. She knew Harvey at Carbondale Lookout and told me she would give him a call to check if he got my package which I had left for him from the lady at Ironstone Lookout the day before.

I sensed that she didn’t really want to have a very long chat, as it was a bit cold standing out there, so after a short while we said goodbye and started down the hill. But we were not finished with hill climbing yet! Across the saddle from the lookout stands an enticing hill, reached by a short ridge with a tiny scramble at the top.

We were soon at the top, where a stone cairn had been erected in memory of four soldiers of Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry, whose names were carved on a post inserted in the top of the cairn. The views from here were superb. Towards the mountains, clouds were starting to roll eastwards, suggesting showers later in the afternoon. To the north one could see the North Saskatchewan River snaking its way through the gap in the Brazeau Range. Visibility was not perfect, but it was sufficient to provide an awesome all-round view and eastwards out to the prairies.

The lookout, across the saddle to the east, might have been a lone island standing out from a wide, deep ocean. In some ways these bare, open ridgetops reminded me of some Scottish hills I have climbed. Looking back from the east, these two summits connected by a saddle, are a prominent feature on the western horizon, perhaps a little like Hallival and Askival on Rhum, or Ben More and Stobinian.

Returning down onto the saddle, I could not resist walking right across the large melting snowdrift. I paid for it by finding the ground below the drift to be soft mud! I got some great shots of J striding down the mountain with snow on each side and small clouds dotting the blue sky above.

Our journey down the mountain was easy and enjoyable. We decided not to stop at the interesting sheep corral on a connecting ridge spur. Here in the trees was a wooded enclosure where the sheep are enticed by salt, and a white shed where the students live. Apparently they change personnel each year. This year there are two students living up there, one from Quebec and one from France.

It was a bit of a relief to once again enter the forest, after being exposed to a bright sun up on the open mountainsides. An uneventful return down the trails brought us safely back to the car. In the morning we had not met one vehicle along this logging road. On the return, we met an ambulance racing along with siren blazing, and later a police car also heading west. J suggested that I might have pressed the wrong button on my SPOT GPS device and L had called for reinforcements! Perhaps there had been an incident at a gas well? We could only speculate.

After stopping in Rocky Mountain House for gas and a donut, we made a fast return home on busier but manageable roads. Today’s adventure had required a lot of driving, but we both felt it was well worth the effort for the reward of standing up there on a remote Alberta mountain top under a blue sky, chatting about Nova Scotia with yet another friendly lookout observer!


Statistics
Ram Lookout
Sun. 27 June

Total Dist. 14 km (hike)
Height Gain 2580 ft.
Max. Elev. 7129 ft.
Time on trail 5 hrs. 9 mins.