Sun./Mon.
13/14 October: Cold Feet: The Sheep River Valley (again)
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| Large Grizzly beside the Sheep River road |
The
title of this latest trip has nothing to do with fear! This tale is filled with bold adventures,
including crossing rivers, clambering up rocky outcrops, avoiding the rifle
shots of hunters, meeting moose and grizzly.
It’s all to do with two chilly crossings of the dramatically altered Sheep River
– its course changed by the incredible floods of June.
Sunday
night would be the final night for camping in all but a small handful of
year-round campsites in the mountains and foothills. Given a perfect weather forecast, I just
couldn’t miss the opportunity. In the Sheep Valley,
the Sandy McNabb campsite was still open, so I headed out there hoping it would
not be full. It wasn’t. In fact I found
a whole empty corner of the large campsite and had soon set up my small tent. It was the only tent in the campsite, everyone else having sensibly brought their large heated trailers and RVs!
It
was only early afternoon on a cool, overcast day. The forecast showed it would clear later, and
there were some glimmers of sunlight. A magical
transformation in the weather would happen overnight. Nevertheless it was a nice afternoon for a
stroll. I chose to explore the Gorge Creek Road,
which had been closed to traffic at the Sheep Valley
junction due to the floods. I was
curious to see how much damage the floods had caused to this narrow gravel road
which runs north, above a deep gorge, to a locked gate. It is the access road for some wonderful
hikes to Volcano Mountain,
Surveyor’s Ridge, and Mt.
Ware.
Within
half a kilometre I came to a missing section of road, where the swollen creek
had broken through. I detoured upstream
around the destruction. Some very old
wooden pipes had been exposed by the floods. There was one other section of road, high
above the gorge, which had been damaged, but apart from that, the road was
still in good shape. I had not expected
to meet anyone up here but a young couple strolled by, followed a little later by
a family on horseback. We exchanged
cheery greetings.
The
trees had lost most of their leaves and it was a cool, cloudy afternoon. A thin layer of snow lay beside the road in shady
areas. The mountain peaks to the west were
snow-covered. To the right of the road
were the cliffs of Missinglink
Mountain, tempting me to
climb up and explore. I added them to my
list of future adventures.
At
the road barrier, I turned around and made good time back down the road to the Sheep Valley. Back at the campsite a roaring fire was soon
established, which kept me warm as the light quickly faded and the temperatures
dropped below freezing. At last, my
sleeping bag, rated for minus ten degrees C, didn’t feel too hot. I slept well.
Overnight, the skies magically cleared.
A
bowl of porridge and some hot chocolate were the answer to a cold, clear
morning. My hiking buddy JM arrived from
the city as I was striking camp, and we were quickly off up the Sheep River
road, in two cars. We left my car at Indian
Oils parking area, then drove back down the valley to Gorge Creek. Here our hike would start.
Crossing
the Sheep River is always an adventure, even when
the waters are low. The river had
suffered major changes during the floods, and so we weren’t sure how easy it
would be today. We were in luck, finding
a good route across, having first waded the smaller Gorge Creek. But the water was really cold, and we did not
linger for photos! Climbing the opposite
bank was a little tricky as the river had cut a new path. Once on the other side of the river, it was
plain sailing up the Teskey Road,
above the Sheep River gorge and through the meadows to
Dyson Creek. The sun had started to warm
things up, although there was a frost on the shady areas of the green meadows.
Dyson
Creek had seen major floods and there were stones scattered across the grass
where the floodwaters had poured down the mountainsides. Dyson
Falls are just a small waterfall,
but they have a special beauty worth a trip on its own. Today we were heading south to Green Mountain,
which looked quite intimidating from Dyson Creek. We marched up the flood damaged fire-road,
turning left onto the Green
Mountain trail. At the high
point of the muddy trail we turned left into the trees
and climbed steadily up the southwest ridge.
Now onto open slopes, we enjoyed the mountain views as we climbed up towards
the summit. Along the way we played
around on the fascinating rock outcrops just below the summit cliffs.
The
top of Green Mountain is an anti-climax. A survey marker, hidden in the trees, marks
the highest point. Here we met four
camouflage-clad rifle-carrying hunters who had climbed from another route. I was glad I had my orange toque on. We let them stride north along the ridge and
decided to return the same way we had come. A few minutes later, shots rang out and we
were glad we had not followed the hunters. The loud reports echoed for several seconds
off distant mountain walls.
Before
leaving the summit, we searched for a geo-cache and found it, well hidden in a
rock outcrop. This was our first
geo-cache search since J had bought his GPS device. I suspect our hiking trips will now have an
added challenge!
Returning
down to Dyson Creek, we then turned west to follow the Sheep Trail up into the
meadows below Mt. Hoffmann and down to the Sheep
River at Tiger Jaw Falls. The easy stroll across the bridge had now
become another exciting river crossing. We walked upstream a couple of hundred metres
to a fast-flowing but manageable crossing point. Since our feet were quite warm from our day’s
exertions, the icy cold water was refreshing as long as we didn’t hang around in
the river. From the opposite bank, we
strolled down the wide area of boulders created by the colossal floods, back to
the car at Indian Oils. Several family
groups were enjoying the perfect weather, sitting on the bare rocks where the bridge
once crossed over the falls.
We
drove the short distance west to the end of the road. Here we walked a few hundred metres up the
Sheep Trail to a good vantage point for Gibraltar Mountain,
where J found his second geo-cache of the day.
On
our way back down the valley we stopped to admire a large grizzly bear, which
was foraging for food right beside the road. He looked directly at us as if to warn us to
stay where we were. We had no intention
of getting any closer. His presence was
a reminder that one can meet a bear anywhere up this valley at any time.
Today
it didn’t need two icy crossings of the Sheep River
to encounter both bear and moose – but they were probably also out there across
the river, on the remoter trails. This
powerful grizzly was a reminder to stay alert out there.
Statistics (Gorge Creek Road):
Total
Distance: 9.0 km (hike)
Height
Gain: 330
ft.
Max.
Elev.: 5,250 ft.
Time
on Trail: 2 hrs. 03 mins.
Dep. car: 2.18 pm
Barrier: 3.21 pm
Ret.
to car: 4.21
pm
Temp: +4
deg.C
Weather: Overcast, slowly clearing, cool
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| Fall colours at entrance to Sheep Valley |
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| Moose grabbing a tasty snack |
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| Gorge Creek Road flood damage |
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| Hazy sun today: magical clearing overnight |
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| More flood damage on Gorge Creek Road |
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| Family outing |
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| End of road, and trailhead for the back-country |
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| A lonely road |
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| Looking down into the gorge |
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| Green Mountain: tomorrow's destination |
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| Very old pipe-making technique exposed by the floods |
Statistics (Green Mountain):
Total
Distance: 15.5 km (hike)
Height
Gain: 1,490 ft.
Max.
Elev.: 6,050 ft.
Time
on Trail: 6 hrs. 11 mins.
Dep. Gorge Ck: 9.35 am
Dyson Falls: 10.54 am
Green
Mtn: 12.29 pm
Dyson Falls: 1.57
pm
Sheep River: 3.13
pm
Arr.
Indian Oils: 3.46 pm *
Temp: Minus
4 to Plus 12 deg.C
Weather: Cloudless;
temps. vary from nippy breeze to warm and windless
2 comments:
Great posts. Just wanted to let you know that is a big old brown coloured blackbear. Huge bear, but not a grizz.
Thanks for pointing that out - good catch. At the time we really thought it looked like a grizzly, but now I see you are absolutely right. PH
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