Kananaskis Trails
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Gillean Daffern’s KANANASKIS Country Trail Guide 4th Edition VOLUME 2 West Bragg | The Elbow | The Jumpingpound CONTENTS TRAILS Changes in the 4th Edition — 6 North Hwy. 549 — 18 Acknowledgements — 6 Map of Kananaskis Country — 7 West Bragg Road — 26 Kananaskis Country — 8 What to expect — 9 Facilities — 11 Hwy. 66 — 39 Camping — 12 Info — 13 Powderface Trail — 186 Using the book — 14 Area map — 16 Hwy. 68 — 249 Maps — 270 Index of trails — 278 Contacts — 280 Introduction to Hinton Kananaskis Country and Wa iparous Creek adjoining areas covered by the GHOST Kananaskis Country Trail Guides WAIPAROUS G BENCHLANDS host River to Sundre e Min 940 Lak ne t 22 w anka os Gh th ou S COCHRANE t Bow o River B a n 1A TR AN 22 S-C 1A AN AD CANMORE A HIG Whiteman's BOW VALLEY HWAY 1 r Gap e v i R CALGARY 68 Elb ow R 742 EXSHAW iver DEAD Jumpingpou SPRAY MAN nd C reek 8 FLAT is sk JUMPINGPOUND na Spray a 40 WEST BRAGG Nakiska n Lakes a CREEK ROAD Ski Area K WEST Reservoir P O BRAGG W KANANASKIS D BRAGG CREEK E Canyon C VILLAGE R reek 66 F A to Hwy 2 C E 22X KANANASKIS T R PRIDDIS A VALLEY I L MT. SHARK 549 ROAD ELBOW S 22 M IT McLEAN H -D O Fortress CREEK R R Junction w I o 762 MILLARVILLE E b reek N El t C /S e oin SMITH- P tl ep R it re A L h Y r T DORRIEN T e R v IL A i RA IL R T K w E 7 bo E El R to Okotoks C E BLACK G R O DIAMOND Kananaskis SHEEP G 546 Lakes TURNER VALLEY KANANASKIS 22 40 S hee iver LAKES p R Highwood 541 to High River ELK Pass FLAT CREEK r LONGVIEW LAKES e E H Flat v L igh C i K w re R o e R o k I V d E R d R O HIGHWOOD o A o D ELK LAKES R w PROVINCIAL iv h 540 PARK e ig r H to High River ek r e o C kisk 22 Highwood Pe House k e to e Elkford CATARACT r Information Centres C WILLOW Winter Gates 532 CREEK ract Vol. 1 Kananaskis Valley, Smith-Dorrien, ata C LIVINGSTONE Kananaskis Lakes, Elk Lakes W to Nanton i Vol. 2 Jumpingpound, West Bragg, Elbow 940 llo The w Creek Vol. 3 Ghost, Bow Valley, Spray Hump Wilkinson Vol. 4 Sheep, McLean Creek Summit 940 Vol. 5 Flat Creek, Highwood, Cataract Willow Creek, Livingstone O ld to m HWY 3 an R ive to r Coleman 7 Introduction RATING TRAILS USING THE BOOK No attempt has been made to classify trails. What’s difficult for one person is ARRANGEMENT OF TRAILS easy for another. It’s all relative. Also com- Trails are arranged by highway and are ing into play are the length of a trail, its colour coded. Refer to map on page 16. gradient, its remoteness from a trailhead, conditions underfoot and so on. Read TYPES OF TRAILS the introductory description carefully. If Official trails are maintained by you’re having a horrible time, it’s up to Kananaskis Country, Alberta Tourism, you to turn back and try something easier. Parks & Recreation, and Alberta Sustain- able Resources are a mix of new and old RATING TIMES trails, logging and exploration roads, fire Times are dependent on too many vari- roads and cutlines. Expect parking lots at ables — everybody chugs along at a dif- trailheads, biffies and the occasional pic- ferent rate. Some will be carrying heavy nic table. Junctions are marked with sig- packs; some people, like me, want to make nage of the “You are here” variety. Some frequent flower stops. And then there are trails have directional arrows or coloured the underfoot conditions to consider, the markers on trees or posts. Unless the trail weather and so on. is equestrian, expect bridges over creeks. • Half day, up to 3 hours. Unofficial trails are similar to the above, • Day, up to 6 hours. but sometimes have no obvious trailhead, • Long day, up to 10 hours plus. are neither signposted nor marked in (Take headlamps) any way except perhaps, for the occa- • Backpack, overnight camping. sional piece of flagging, cairn or trimmed branches. Creek crossings are the norm. For the first time, this category includes Some of the trips are designated “bike trails demoted from official status. ’n’ hike” and “bike ’n’ scramble.” Biking the first part of the trail can cut down the Routes either have no trails or have long time considerably. In this way I’ve often trail-less sections where you have to navi- squeezed a weekend trip into one day. gate from one intermittent game trail to an- other. Often there is some bushwhacking. DISTANCES Distances are given in kilometres. Dis- Scrambles can have official or unofficial tances shown between each segment of trails or be routes. They range from ridge trail are not cumulative; they show the walks to gruelling uphill flogs in excess distance of that segment only. of 1000 m to the top of a mountain. You can be sure of scree, and possibly a pitch TRAIL DESCRIPTIONS or two of easy scrambling. There may be Trail descriptions are arranged according mild exposure. Special equipment is un- to the character of the trail. Most trails lead necessary in optimum conditions when to a single destination. But sometimes the the mountain is devoid of snow and the destination is the springboard for further weather is good. options under headings like “going farther,” “side trip,” “optional descent route” etc. I HEIGHTS, HEIGHT GAINS sometimes describe the same mountain with are given in both metric and imperial. different ways up and down, or an area with a number of trails or peaks radiating out from 14 Introduction the same access. Occasionally loop trails BUYING MAPS can be extended into longer loops. Long- Maps in the back of this book are for distance trails, rarely hiked in their entirety, reference only. You need to carry a bona- are described by segment. fide topo map. The latest editions of Gem Trek maps come close to being the perfect DIRECTIONS maps for the area, with contour intervals Left and right refer to the direction of of 25 m. They show grid lines, up-to-date travel. Skier’s left/right refers to descent, road alignments, official trails, some unof- climber’s left/right to ascent. ficial trails, and major powerlines. Government topo maps, depending on GRID REFERENCES AND the edition, are in both imperial and met- GPS RECEIVERS ric, with contour lines at 100-ft. intervals Where I give grid references you can fol- and 40-m intervals respectively (not so low along on your topo map. good). Occasionally, features like small Maps have blue grid lines running lakes, streams, glaciers and even moun- east–west and north–south. Each line is tains are omitted, which leads to exciting numbered. The first two numbers indicate discoveries. Generally, road alignments the grid line forming the west boundary of are corrected on maps newer than 1983. the kilometre square in which your point Provincial Resource Base Maps is located, and the third number the esti- from Alberta Energy are updated fairly mated number of tenths of a kilometre your regularly and show what the other maps point is east of that line. The fourth and don’t: all cutlines, all powerlines and fifth numbers indicate the south boundary exploration and logging roads. Unfortu- of the square, and the last number is the nately, the reality is sometimes nothing estimated number of tenths of a kilometre like what is shown on the map. your point is north of that line. GPS receivers are useful when MAPS FOR VOLUME 2 bushwhacking or for finding your way Gem Trek back to a trail or a trailhead. • Bragg Creek and Sheep Valley: scale 1:50,000, contour interval 25 m. MAPS IN BOOK • Kananaskis Lakes: scale 1:50,000, Sketch maps in the text are not always to contour interval 25 m. scale and serve only to clarify complex ar- • Canmore and Kananaskis Village scale eas where you might go wrong. Maps at the 1:50,000, contour interval 25 m. back of the book are based on today’s topo maps, which come in a mix of imperial and metric. Therefore, the contour inter- Government Topo maps vals vary. There are also errors like miss- Scale 1:50,000 ing creeks, lakes, mountains and glaciers. • 82 J/15 Bragg Creek Because of this these maps are intended • 82 O/2 Jumpingpound Creek as a guide only. Still, trails and routes are • 82 J/11 Kananaskis Lakes marked as accurately as possible. • 82 J/10 Mount Rae • 82 J/14 Spray Lakes Reservoir • Red line: a trail, official or unofficial. • Red dash: a route. • Black line: trail in other volumes, or trail not used. • Dashed black line: route in other vol- umes of this series. 15 7 8 78 77 Barrier Info 79-83 83 Centre 68 Barrier 85 Lake 84 70,71,73 74-76 69 72 2 1 65,66 3 West Bragg road 67 68 4-6, 8 Elbow Valley 6 Info 9 Centre 17 58,59 60-64 8, 10-13 6, 7 P F o w i d 55 e 2 1 s r 16 f a 18 h c e e T 21-24 r 14,15 r a 19,20 i l 26 25 R 28,29 a 57 56 n g 28,30 e 4 3 26,27 31 32-34 35 45,52 51 53-54 36-37 5 44 43 Opal Range 47-50 41 42 40 The Area covered by Volume 2, showing 39 46 location of trailheads with trail numbers and areas covered by 38 maps at the back of 37 this book Elbow Lake 16 Hwy.