Conquering Chungo

Fri.-Sun. 26-28 August:  Chungo Lookout

Chungo Lookout

Mission accomplished!  After months of trying to figure out how to get to the abandoned Chungo Fire Lookout, on a remote ridge in the Central Alberta foothills, an expedition was mounted this weekend, and it was successful.

This story began back in early May 2010 when I visited Blackstone Lookout, up the Forestry Trunk Road north of Nordegg off Highway 11.  Hazel, the fire lookout at Blackstone, told me about the Chungo Lookout, and it caught my imagination: an abandoned, yet intact, fire lookout on a distant mountain ridge, which nobody ever visited.  I began to consider if it might be possible to get there, or if it was just too remote to reach.  Over several months, I studied maps, contacted a local off-road vehicle club, found a back-country outfitter who rode horses into the area.  I even contacted helicopter companies to see if they’d fly me in there, but when they told me what it would cost, that ended any idea of the easy option.  I finally discovered a very helpful person who works for the forestry service, who had some knowledge of the route, and now I knew it might be possible to hike into there.   Thanks to good advice from L, I started to plan a three day, two night trip, with a base camp from which the assault on the ridge would start.  L also suggested I do the trip as soon as possible, while it was still summer.   A weather window appeared, along with the ideal partner for this adventure, being M.  We moved quickly, and were ready to leave the city at noon on the Friday.

Friday

It was a fast, and enjoyable journey north up the “Cowboy Trail”, Highway 22, through the small towns of Sundre, Caroline, and Rocky Mountain House.  From here, a very fast 100 km westwards on the wide Highway 11, through vast areas of rolling forest, brought us to the old mining village of Nordegg.  After filling up with gas, we turned north onto the dusty Forestry Trunk Road, for about 12 km, then branched left onto the even more remote Chungo Road.  Our trailhead lay exactly 39 km up this road, with measurement of distance being made very easy due to the handy little signs every kilometer, giving us the distance from the Forestry Road junction.  Chungo Road is impressive.  It climbs and drops dramatically as it heads north in the lonely, forested foothills of the Rockies.  Thanks to the various gas wells and tiny gas plants in the area, this road has been newly reconstructed, and although a gravel surface, was well graded and empty of traffic.  At kilometer 39 we had our eye out for a green trapper’s cabin, and there it was, a very basic little one-room home in the trees.  And a few yards past the cabin was the old fire access road, branching off to the left, just before a tight right-hand bend in the Chungo Road.

We were soon on the trail, carrying on our backs all the supplies we would need for three days in the back-country.   Below us to the left was Brown Creek, which would become our companion for most of our adventure.  If you like crossing rivers or creeks, then this is the trail for you.  In total, over the next three days, we would make sixty eight (68) creek crossings.  Luckily the water only occasionally reached up to our knees.  Several crossings could be made by hopping from rock to rock.  This is called a creek, but is really a small river.  Earlier in the season it would present a formidable barrier to progress up the valley.  We could see how high the water reaches in Spring run-off, and it would be several feet deep.

At the start, the trail is very clear, and is accessible to vehicles for the initial few hundred metres.  The first wide river crossing would stop all cars – but not OHVs.  One or two very attractive campsites were located at the first few creek crossings.  Beyond that, there was no sign of anyone having camped up this valley.

Our adventure can be broken into three stages.  The first day we walked westwards up this valley, to our base camp, about 9 km from the road.  The second day we would continue west, then south, climbing up to Chungo Ridge and the lookout, before retracing our steps to the camp – a round trip of about 22 km.  On the final day we would return down the valley to the car.

There is very little elevation gain up the valley.  Generally the trail was clear.  The valley bottom was sometimes grassy with scattered trees, and then it would narrow down a little, and the trail would pass through the trees.  The sides of the valley and the surrounding hills were heavily forested. 

On this first day we crossed the creek twenty six times, each of us in our own style.  M wore her sturdy kayaking sandals and so simply waded across – and often straight up the middle of the river just for the fun of it!  I used my “dry-sack” technique, which kept my feet reasonably dry.  Either way works.

Eventually, we came to a broad, grassy area below a steep slope, where the valley splits, one branch heading northwest, and our branch continuing in a generally westerly direction.  Here, beside the trail, above the creek, we found an ideal place to set up our base camp.    Just above us were some low bluffs in the trees, which provided a good view across the bushes and the grass, so we could keep an occasional eye out for any passing animals.  In fact, the next day, I discovered a thermometer nailed to a tree up there, which indicated that someone may have used this as a campsite, but there was no sign of recent activity, or a fire-pit.   M had her bivy tent laid out in no time.  My lightweight Big Agnes tent soon followed.   We then cooked ourselves a hot meal down on the little beach beside the creek.  The light faded by around 9 pm.  During the walk, we had been watching the clouds, which had looked slightly threatening for a while.  But it stayed dry, and it was a warm evening.

Saturday

There was frost overnight, so a large bowl of porridge was the perfect answer.  We were on the trail as the sun started to light up the valley floor.  Today there would be a hazy sun and a warm breeze – perhaps the perfect weather for a long hike.  We continued westwards up the valley, passing through a narrow gap, before curving southwards towards the hills.  The trail continued to be fairly clear, now a single path in the grass, but marked by several sets of hoof prints from recent horse-back riders.  It was also marked by the occasional bear paw print and bear scat, and by other animal prints in the mud.  The bones and skulls lying beside the trail suggested past encounters between predator and prey!  Luckily not today.  For some reason, bones have always fascinated M, and there were some good specimens for her to study.

Now heading south, the valley narrowed, and we passed through a boggy area, marked by an orange metal post – the remains of a fire road gate.  Here the trail finally started to climb up into the hills.  And here we had our first glimpse of the bare rocky northern end of Chungo Ridge, ahead of us.  A steep section directly up a narrow creek-bed brought us to the grassy high-point below the north end of the ridge.  This was marked by another orange metal post – the other part of the gate which someone must have hauled up from the valley below.  The wide, grassy trail continued southwards down the hillsides towards Chungo Gap.  We could see that this was the route the horses took.  Having studied the topo maps carefully, however, we knew that the lookout trail branches off at this point, to head into the valley which parallels the ridge.  We found this sketchy trail just a few yards into the trees to the left of the orange post. 

We could tell this was once a road as there was an “avenue” through the forest where the road once ran.  This reminded me of the nightmare route up to Cabin Ridge, but it also gave us confidence we were on the right path.  There were no signs of anyone having come this way recently.  The route first dropped down the hillsides before leveling out at a tiny lake beneath the ridge.  It was difficult to get to the edge of the lake due to the thick bushes.  We continued up the valley, making one minor error in route-finding by straying a little too far to the right and ending up in the bushes along the valley floor.  But we soon found the trail again, which hugged the slightly drier edge of the valley in the trees.  From hereon, the route was easy to find, as the trail started to climb steeply to the head of the valley.  This had once been a road, but was now a grassy or rocky trail, mostly free of bushes and fallen trees, running through the “avenue”. 

Suddenly, with an excited shout, M proclaimed: “Look, there’s the lookout!”.  And there it was, high on the ridge ahead of us – and it was intact!  Now we knew the game was on.  We were going to make it.

After a long steep section, we reached the head of the valley, and turning up to the left, were soon at tree-line.  Already the views westwards to the Rocky Mountain Front Ranges were spectacular, particularly the gap in the mountains where the Brazeau River runs out towards the foothills and prairie.  I had stood close to the source of the Brazeau, on Nigel Pass, only a few weeks ago.  Now I was seeing the same river from a completely different angle.  It runs through a wide, lonely valley running north-south between the mountains and Chungo Ridge.

The final section of trail runs in two long switchbacks up to the summit of the ridge.  The road no longer exists.  You can figure out where it ran, and so can make a route across the steep, bare, stony mountainside, but over the years, the natural angle of the ridge has filled back in.  Soon we were approaching the ridge-top and the lookout.  The top of Chungo Ridge is grassy and flat enough for several buildings as well as a helicopter pad.  But the ridge itself, in both directions, becomes narrow, with dangerously steep slopes to the east and only slightly less steep to the west.  This ridge is walkable, and if we had not come such a long way to get here, we would have found this an exhilarating ridge-walk.  Not far to the north along the ridge was an appealing summit.  To the south, the ridge soon falls in a series of cliffs down into Chungo Gap.

Chungo Lookout was once an impressive place.  The lookout building itself is still intact, complete with cupola.  Perhaps inevitably, the packrats or marmots have found a way inside through a hole in the lino floor, and have been busily eating away at the walls and cupboards, leaving a mess on the floor.  There is a separate bedroom and a tiny workshop/office, both in bad state of repair.  In the office, on a table, sat a 12 volt battery, with a little power light shining, which feeds the tall aerial outside.  The battery is charged by a solar panel.  A ladder fixed to the wall inside the building leads up to the cupola, which apart from a broken window, is still in good shape.  All windows were of course boarded up.  We noticed the markings above each of the windows of the cupola, showing the direction of key landmarks, such as Grave Flats, Lovett Lookout, and so on.

A rotting wooden pathway curves down past an open storage shed to the privy – also open to the elements.  White stones were arranged to spell “CHUNGO” for visiting helicopters.  Some long-ago visitors had arranged some white stones to read “XMC 84”, and there was a circle of white stones right on the edge of the cliff marking a helicopter pad.  It seemed to us that this place was simply gutted then abandoned, and now is gradually falling into ruin. It is only a matter of time before the main building collapses.  Perhaps the only hope for Chungo is the fact that someone must visit every so often to check the aerial and battery.  It is still not too late for the building to be resealed and rescued from the packrats, as was done at Tocher Ridge in Yoho.  This would then make Chungo a wonderful and incredibly remote destination for adventurous explorers for decades to come.  It was our impression that this place is seldom if ever visited.  We left a little visitors note pinned to a nail in the wall hopefully beyond the reach of the packrats.

Our return from the summit was much quicker, and started with a direct drop off the ridge from the lookout to the head of the valley, short-cutting the long switchbacks.  We made good progress back down the trail, this time keeping to the right path and not straying into the bushes on the valley floor.  For future hikers, look out for the two arrows we left on the ground to indicate where you need to stay a little to the left in the trees, and ignore the red blazing we used as we wandered off course for a few hundred yards on our way up the trail from the small lake.

Feeling very pleased with ourselves, we raced back down the long route, into the Brown Creek valley, and all the way back to our tents.  It had only taken us just over three and a quarter hours to get back from the lookout.  It was a very warm afternoon and we relaxed by the creek on our little beach, enjoying the food and later lighting a small fire on the rocks beside the stream.  By the time the sun had set, we were probably already asleep in our warm sleeping bags.

Sunday

 An even heavier frost overnight left M with a frozen Nalgene water bottle, but today dawned cloudless, and it stayed that way all morning.  It was amazing how quickly the temperatures rose as soon as the sun climbed high enough to hit our tents.  Once again we were glad of a hot bowl of porridge.

Our return journey was a leisurely stroll down the valley, enjoying every one of the twenty six river crossings.  The sunlight made this a beautiful trip through the green grass, over sparkling creek-beds, under a dark blue sky.  The wildflowers were still giving a good display.  And as M discovered the previous day, there were ripe wild strawberries and raspberries all over the ground.  It was very close to being a little paradise today.  The further we travelled eastwards, the more we felt the isolation of the valley we were leaving behind.  This was the most lonely back-country area that either of us had yet experienced.

At one of the crossings, M discovered, just around a corner, the ideal swimming hole, and a diving (or jumping-off) rock, and so proceeded to try it out.  It was very cold.  I was happy to give that experience a miss!

All too soon, we had reached the final river crossing, having sung “ten creek crossings waiting to be crossed” more than enough times!  With a huge sense of achievement we were back at the car.  Our return journey to the  big city was fast and uneventful. 

It was hard to take it all in.  We had only given ourselves a 50-50 chance of success, and we had succeeded. 

Mission Accomplished!

Statistics
Chungo Lookout
Fri.-Sun. 26-28 August
Total Dist.	40.1 km (hike)
Height Gain	2,756 ft.
Max. Elev.	7,415 ft.
Time	14 hrs. 52 min.

Other Stats.
Fri. 26th: Start hike:      5.07 pm Campsite:       7.54 pm Distance:          8.9 km Sun/cloud Sat. 27th: Start hike:      8.25 am High pt. jn.:   10.58 am Arr. L/O:         1.13 pm Dep. L/O:        1.46 pm High pt. jn.:     3.04 pm Campsite:       5.03 pm Distance:        22.3 km Hazy cloud, sun	Sun. 28th: Dep. Camp:   10.10 am Ret. to car:      1.37 pm Distance:          8.9 km Cloudless Temp: dropping to below freezing at night and rising above 20 deg C during the day. Calgary to Trhd. via Sundre: 360.6 km Trhd.- Calgary via Hwy22/2: 380.0 km Trhd. = km # 39 on Chungo Road, past green trappers cabin