I made a plan and executed the beginning of a weekend getaway. I made the announcement in our clubs email list that I was going to go to Beaver Mines Lake (N 49° 22' 10.4052",W 114° 18' 4.716").
A couple of email exchanges and we had a small group of 3 planning to attend Geoff, Jordan and myself. Three is better than none. We had 3 planning to attend and one "maybe". We pounded pavement in Southern Alberta to the beginning of the Crowsnest highway through Pincher Creek to the turn off where the black asphalt road became a wide ribbon of light grey gravel.
I knew Geoff was going to be at a campsite beforehand as he had left Calgary mid-afternoon and I had left after 5 PM.
As the chunky mud tires spat up a big cloud of dust my rig had a plume chasing it for a few kilometers. Then we arrived at the campground gate. I keyed the mic of the FRS/GRMS radio and called our call sign, the radio crackled back with Geoff giving me a location but also the bad news that all the sites were full. Great! 8PM, no supper and no campsite. Lucky for my daughter and I the site that Geoff picked was large enough to accommodate my small backpacking tent and Geoff’s grand 6 man tent too.
One of the neighboring campers heard the conversation about the site being full and came over to inform us that he was leaving in the morning and I could have his site … this was a relief to know. I would only have to intrude one night. I would have never thought the 96 site campground would fill up on a Friday night that is not a long weekend, next time I know.
We sat around the fire and made sticky snacks of roasted marshmallows, chocolate and graham wafers, I am not a fan of sweets so I just cuddled my beer and watched the stars. On Saturday morning, I was slurping my second cup of coffee, I noticed a yellow and black FJ Cruiser slowly looking at campsites. I had seen that particular unit on the internet as he was a member of the local Southern Alberta Off Road club … soon Craig was talking to me asking what our plans were. I explained the dilemma about no vacancy and having to wait for the site across the road to open up. I was then informed that if I was to come back that there was another campground up the road a little ways that did not fill up as fast as the Beaver Mines Lake campground and there was lots of free camping available in the area. Once I had my camp set up shortly after eleven am, our friend Jordan showed up and we had a visit for a little while as we decided what to do for the afternoon.
We decided to go for a little paddle around the lake in Geoff’s canoe while Geoff went to town for some supplies. We explored a tiny island that was full of wild flowers in full bloom; this is where I regretted not bringing my camera in the canoe as there would have been some nice photos to take. The afternoon burned hot until the sun slowly sank on the western horizon, while we munched on smokes roasted over the campfire. As I was wiping the grease from the smoky from my mustache with the back of my hand, a black FJ Cruiser pulled up. We were all gawking around the tent trying to figure out who just pulled up. Once I could see the driver then I knew who it was, he knew where we were but decided to leave late and check out the campground. Fred AKA Fredfredo he was a welcome addition to our little crew of 3.
Sunday morning I rose fairly early and started breaking camp to get on the road less traveled. We had formulated a route with Jordan’s knowledge and experience of the area and we started looking forward to the great views of the Rocky Mountain valleys that the back road would offer. We traveled west on the Crowsnest highway past the Frank slide to the town of Coleman and then up 86th street to Highway 40, a forestry road for a dusty 100 km trek down through Racehorse creek then across the Livingstone pass. Along the way we discovered many more great camping places.
This is a place where we will return to for more camping adventures. A great big thank you to Jordan for once again, showing our group a new trail. This was not so much a 4x4 run but it was an overland trip to discover new 4x4 trails.
