campsite pics..lets see um

K9LTW

Active member
Funny, I was just doing some rteading on the Forestry trunk road to see what shape it's in. I'd like to take my motorcycle for a jaunt down it.

My oldest daughters boyfriend was just talking about heading down it as well then veering off to check out Ruby Falls which was not terribly far from where you were.


We ran it for just 2ish days the last week of May. Despite regular squalls, nothing ever accumulated and I welcomed any precipitation as the dust was insane! It looked like they'd just graded nearly the entire part we were on. In fact they WERE grading Ya Ha Tinda which provided a bit of slot car-like excitement at times. The middle section was closed for the season until mid-June. We went from Crowsnest Pass to the intersection of 40/541 where we headed east to civilization (ew) then continued up 40 west of Cochrane. We did bail east on 752, though, to start heading over to Edmonton as I was growing tired of the endless dust to make the drive to Nordegg worth it.

We, definitely, plan to return in later years as that entire area is just incredible. I spied a hidden lake and such with my drone from that first spot that I'm dying to access by foot. I'd also love to get up on Wildhorse Ridge, but we simply didn't have the time being at each place just overnight.
 

Todd n Natalie

OverCamper
Minnesota: a campsite like that would be swarming with mosquitoes at this time of year.

How do you cope?
The heat kept the mosquitos at bay. The Aphids were annoying. Aphid crap on everything. We ended moving our chairs under our awning.

It sounded like a light rain drizzle at times when it cooled off in the evenings.... 🫤

But it did make for good bat watching at dusk. The bats definitely had lots of food to choose from.
 

NOPEC

Well-known member
Just back from a 68 day paddling trip in the NWT. We usualy had an entirely different tent surface ever night. The PreCambrian Shield granite "whale backs" seen in the second picture were our favourites, once you found the sweet spot where it is level on the hump. The tent zippers also loved the "no sand" feature.... The flag is that of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society who gave us a small grant to help out with the air re-supply costs. The pebble message? Waay too much spare time in the evening with the 22 hrs of day light....

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Pacific Northwest yetti

Expedition Medic
Just back from a 68 day paddling trip in the NWT. We usualy had an entirely different tent surface ever night. The PreCambrian Shield granite "whale backs" seen in the second picture were our favourites, once you found the sweet spot where it is level on the hump. The tent zippers also loved the "no sand" feature.... The flag is that of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society who gave us a small grant to help out with the air re-supply costs. The pebble message? Waay too much spare time in the evening with the 22 hrs of day light....
NOPEC,

Do you have a specific thread for some of these trips? I would love to read about them. + I have a bit of a soft spot for field research.
 

K9LTW

Active member
Thanks. My first time heli camping. Was an end of season employee trip. Pretty fun though. 😂
Man...I thought it was great when our then company of 10 piled into an RV and another vehicle and drove to our CEO's house on the shore across from Wallops Island to watch a launch (that was scrubbed).

So...um...where can I send a resume? :unsure:
 

ripperj

Explorer
My TC800 on my 3500 and my buddies XTR square drop we drug up to PEI/Nova Scotia from CT/NY
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Murray Beach campground , real nice place , clean bathrooms, free hot showers


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 

NOPEC

Well-known member
NOPEC,

Do you have a specific thread for some of these trips? I would love to read about them. + I have a bit of a soft spot for field research.
Hi PNY
Thx for the nice comment.

Yes, we have a blog that is going to be receiving considerable attention from us once the dust clears from our trip. It is called "Paddle Strokes for Old Folks".

Funny you mentioned "field research". This trip had considerable aspects of research, all well hidden within a faulous trip. We were documenting the huge changes to the water level in the lake, same having gone from record highs a few years ago to unseen before low water this year. (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nort...rritories-record-low-climate-change-1.6980937) This was to report on the new reality of recreational paddling on the 9th largest lake in the world after upwards of a 5 ft drop in water level.

We were also doing a bit of "seniors centric" experimenting on oursleves by doing an intense 80 or so day, hard wilderness expedition. We are strong believers that for a bunch of good reasons, older folks should and can (with some obvious adaptations..) still "get out there". Paddling flat water or modest rivers ensure no need to lug stuff around too much, thus saving backs, hips, knees, etc.

My partner is quite a well known BC artist and part of the trip was for gathering photos and sketches for a winter's work of creating a body of work depicting the amazing fauna and flora of the Great Slave Lake area.

Although my peak bagging/chasing first ascents days are ancient history, we were pretty sure that no one had ever paddled the entire circumference of GSLake in a single, uninterrupted trip so we thought, what the hell, as a secondary objective, why shouldn't we be the first? So the trip was planned for Hay River to Hay River, counterclockwise, leaving just after the ice had cleared in June.

PNY, you may appreciate this because of your profession....

Up until day 68, we were crushing the trip, sitting at 85% of the total distance (1332.2 km to be exact in the bag). On this day while waiting for the crazy winds to calm down, I was walking when I toppled over in the sand. It was weird but I got up and a couple of feet later, did it again. A self exam showed I had numbness and complete lack of dorsiflexion in my right ankle, this right out of the blue. I suspected at worst, a stroke or TIA. The winds were nuts but with InReach, I was able to get a helicopter to pluck us off the beach and fly to the hospital in Yellowknife, leaving all our gear on the beach. The great news was that I had damaged the Peroneal nerve in the leg (most likely from strain/overuse/positional abuse by sitting and bracing while operating the rudder pedals) so no brain injury but a wonky foot, hopefully only for the short term. The bad news is the trip had to be terminated. There was just no way of carrying on as my foot could not work the rudder in my boat and with fall winds and water picking up, controlling the loaded boats was demanding more and more effort. Recovery of the gear was also impossible as basically, no one would look at going into that stretch of water with either a boat or float plane.

The pictures below were taken just before we left. The little birch is holding it's own but thank goodness for 4 season tents!

Anyway PNY, that was a long answer to a short question! I will post some more stuff here on ExPo a little later.


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