Hunting Season

Thurs. 1 to Sat. 3 November:  Hunting Season

Thursday: Escape

It’s Hunting Season in the foothills and mountains of Alberta.  So it was time for me to dig out my bright orange jacket and garish orange toque.  The hills would be full of camouflage-clad stalkers with rifles over their shoulders, and I certainly wanted them to see me from a good distance away!

Along the Kananaskis Highway there is only one campsite open at this time of year (apart from the luxurious Mt. Kidd RV Park).  This is the Strawberry autumn campsite, beside the Highwood River not far north of the Highwood Junction winter gate.  It’s a small site in the trees beside the river, and is only open September through November.  It’s called an equestrian campsite but is largely (if not entirely) used by hunters. 

The weather on Thursday evening as I left the city was terrible.  There was fog and freezing rain, and light was fading fast.  Nobody in their right mind would be heading out on a camping trip.  But I had studied the forecast and had a feeling that it was different out in the mountains.  Sure enough, as I approached Longview, portions of snowy mountainsides appeared out of the mist, and by the time I arrived at Strawberry, it was dry, and there were breaks in the cloud.  Darkness fell quickly.

There had been some snowfall today, in the form of icy pellets, so I first had to use my snow shovel to scrape a couple of inches of this granular snow off the icy ground to make a pad for my tent.  In no time I had a good fire burning in the firepit.  The campsite was empty apart from two hunters in a large RV.

Finally my sleeping bag, always too hot in summer, came into its own.  An extra blanket on top made it a comfortable night in temperatures which dropped to around minus 5 degrees C.

Friday:  McPhail Creek to the Great Divide

There was no hurry to get up.  The sun wouldn’t rise until 8.30 am.  A bright moon shone fitfully between the clouds as I prepared a breakfast of hot porridge – the best start to an active day!

It was just a short drive up the highway to Cat Creek, where my hike would start.  Far off to the west, half hidden by the clouds, were the snowy peaks of the Great Divide.  The old logging road up McPhail Creek would take me into the heart of this wild mountain landscape.  This was true back-country travel, made more so by having to cross the wide Highwood River.  At this time of year, the river is still impressive, but easily waded.  In summer, it is often impassable, a barrier to travel into the mountains.

Just beyond the river crossing, at the top of a short hill, I was startled by two barking dogs rushing out of the forest.  They were guarding a large hunters’ camp.  I could see a big sleeping tent, ponies, covered wagon, but no sign of people.  As I continued up the trail, there were recent hoof prints, so I assumed there was a group of hunters ahead of me on horseback.

There is a good logging road all the way up McPhail Creek.  In summer this would be perfect for a mountain bike, although there would be several stretches where I would be pushing, not riding.  There are a couple of junctions, where side trails lead to different sections of the mountain wall ahead.  One side road leads to Carnarvon Creek, and the next to Muir Creek. Along the way there were a couple of empty hunters’ camps.  There were also beaver ponds and signs of recent beaver activity with felled timber.

All the time the mountain wall was gradually closing in ahead of me.  The trail became snow covered, but never more than two or three inches deep.  This allowed me now to see that only one set of horse tracks was ahead of me.  These were newly made tracks, so this person was perhaps only an hour or so ahead of me.  I’m sure when he came back down the trail, he would be very surprised to see that a hiker had been so far up into the wilderness.  

The road leads into a hidden basin directly below the headwall of the Great Divide.  It was here, back in 1936, that a gigantic forest fire burned for several months and destroyed everything in its path.  For decades, this valley was a charred wilderness.  Now, the trees have grown again.  I noticed, at one of the hunter’s camps, a pile of firewood from the burned trees that survived that fire of over seventy five years ago.

The high point of the trail was in the narrows leading to the hidden basin.  Here the open slopes led enticingly up to the Hill of the Flowers – far too much for today.  So I continued into the basin, where I found that the rider ahead of me had turned off towards the Lake of the Horns.  The main trail continued on towards the headwall and Weary Gap.

I followed the rider for a few hundred yards, where I found a snowed in campsite, no signs of recent use.  I then turned around.  To reach the Lake of the Horns would require another day and a steep climb.  This is where the rider was headed – a lonely place to be.  He was probably hunting for moose or bear, and would clearly be counting on having this wild back-country to himself.

Returning down the trail, I detoured up the lower slopes of the Hill of the Flowers to get a spectacular viewpoint for my  lunchtime picnic.  Snowy cliffs rose up into the cloud, from the hidden valley below the walls of Mt. Muir (9,000 ft.) and Mt. McPhail (9,400 ft.). 

On my return journey, I enjoyed photographing the various prints I found along the trail: moose, bear, elk, horse, and …bigfoot!!??  This photo was NOT doctored.  Perhaps it was two hoof prints joined together – but then perhaps not!

A breeze was starting to blow at my back, and I was glad of the good surface beneath my feet as the miles passed by.  Finally I was back at the Highwood River, which seemed wider and deeper this afternoon.  The sun started to shine as I passed through the meadows to Cat Creek.  I had travelled over twenty kilometres into the wildest of back-country, and (apart from the two dogs) had not seen a single animal or human.  I sat beside the river on a handy bench and looked back to the cloud-covered Great Divide.  Had I really travelled into that distant mountain country?

At the campsite, the two hunters were relaxing in the sunshine by the river, clad in their camouflage.  A little later, they were joined by more hunters in another large RV.  We were the only residents tonight.  A good fire kept the cold away.

Statistics
McPhail Creek
Fri. 2 November
Total Dist.	20.5 km (hike)
Height Gain	1,050 ft.
Max. Elev.	5,948 ft.
Time	6 hrs. 23 mins.

Other Stats.
Start hike:      8.51 am River:             9.27 am Lake Jn.:      12.06 pm Hill of Flwrs:12.30 pm River:             2.38 pm Ret. to car:     3.14 pm	Temp: minus 4 C to   + 7 C Mostly overcast, only breeze was on Hill of Flowers.

Saturday:  Strawberry Circle

This sounds like an interesting dessert – and in a way it was.  After Friday’s spectacular backcountry journey, today I devised the perfect circuit, starting at my campsite.  I followed the foot of the Cat Creek Hills, discovered a long section of abandoned highway, and returned along a remote section of the Highwood River.

I poked my head out of the tent to enjoy a clear sky with a bright moon and familiar constellations.  Gradually the moonlight was overtaken by the dawn.  Clouds, moving in from across the mountains, soon blocked the rising sun.  A blazing fire was quickly established, and I was able to make some excellent toast, to go along with my porridge.

My circuit started with a short stroll through the trees to the highway.  I turned right (south) along the road for a few hundred yards to a secret trail I had spotted the day before.  It was clearly no secret to the hunters, as a truck was parked beside the road here.  So I knew that there was someone with a loaded gun somewhere ahead of me.  This winding trail led up into a valley below the attractive Cat Creek Hills.  Turning north, I followed this valley all the way to the old elk corrals.  This valley was flat and grassy, and climbed gently as I headed northwards.  At one time it was a logging access road, but the tracks were now just faint in the grass.  I was now back in familiar territory.

Just beyond the elk corrals, which were now falling apart, I turned left up a side trail out of the valley, and came to one of my favorite stretches of trails in Kananaskis Country.  The grassy path, framed by bare-branched aspens, gave spectacular views of the Highwood Valley and the Elk Range beyond.  I could see across to the Hill of the Flowers, where I had stood the day before.  This trail drops down to Cat Creek, where I crossed over the creek beside the concrete abutments of the old road bridge.

I decided to follow the route of the old highway leading north from here.  It turned out to be longer than I had expected, but fascinating.  This road was no narrow forest trail.  It was a wide, engineered highway, only superseded some time in the 1970’s I think. It rises up between the Cat Creek Hills on the right and some low forested hillsides on the left.  Wide and flat, it made for easy hiking.  The trees were starting to grow along the route. Finally curving left, the road met the modern highway, and here was another hunter’s truck parked by the road.  Luckily I had seen neither hunter – but I am sure they could easily see me!

I now turned left (south) on the main road for a short distance before finding the remnants of an even older road branching off to the right, on a steep bank with superb westward views.  This overgrown, narrow trail dropped gently to the valley below, where I picked up the trail I had followed the day before, leading to Cat Creek.

Along this section of meadows I met two hunters in camouflage, with rifles slung over their shoulders.  It looked like father and son.  A little boy in a red coat clung onto the son’s hand.  The father, with longish grey hair, asked if I had seen any wildlife,  I told him I had seen plenty of tracks but no animals.  He had noticed signs of elk.  I wished them luck and continued down the trail.   

From Cat Creek, the river heads away from the road.  I followed the edge of the river all the way back to Strawberry camp, perhaps about two kilometres.  There was a faint trail leading through brush and forest.  The river followed a winding course below cliffs and round bends in the forest.  Perhaps few people ever see this stretch of river.  Finally I could hear the sound of a chainsaw, and then I came upon a random picnic table beside the river.  Soon I was back at my campsite.  The Alberta Parks people were busy sawing down damaged trees.

It was time to pack up and return to the city.  The sun was starting to break through the clouds, and a westerly wind was picking up as I struck camp.

This adventure into the real back-country had been a highlight of my hiking year.  There is a certain magic about the land west of the Highwood River, and McPhail Creek provided a simple access into this land.  To be able to hike, in November, right up to the headwall of the Continental Divide, was an amazing experience.  By December 1st, the road will be closed, the campsite shut down, and the snows will be drifting on sub-zero winds across the trail.  I had found a way to thread the needle of opportunity and to experience this magic.

Statistics
Strawberry Circle
Sat. 3 November
Total Dist.	10.0 km (hike)
Height Gain	500 ft.
Max. Elev.	5,560 ft.
Time	3 hrs. 3 mins.

Other Stats.
Start hike:      9.23 am Cat Ck (U):   10.23 am Cat Ck (L):    11.30 am Ret.to camp:12.26 pm (U) = upper (L) = lower	Temp: about zero C to   + 5 C Mostly overcast, wind starting to pick up, some sunny breaks.

Note:  A special note of thanks to old friends B and N who graciously accepted my reason for not joining you on Friday.  Not that you will ever read this note, but my gratitude is there anyway!  These sometimes crazy adventures keep the work-life balance in good shape.