Quick overnighter in SW Alberta

[gnty]

As for camping and getting out with the van, this summer has been pretty dismal. So at about 11am on Friday my 8 month pregnant wife, 2 year old, me and my parents decided to get out of town and go for a quick overnighter while checking out the foothills of Southern Alberta. My parents took the Bigfoot 3000 camper while our ever growing family realized that the space in our SMB is getting smaller.
The pictures...I tried some different editing with the pictures just for fun, so many look quite different, even a little TO edited. Either way thought i'd share as we won't be out much this year.

An hour and a bit after leaving town we got off the pavement and headed into the hills.





This is approaching what is called "the gap" where you can often see many different animals making their way from one side of the valley to the other.

Going through the Gap. Great fishing by the way, many fly fishermen were out.

Finding a camp site, its random camping.

Drove by Frank Slide, buried the mining town of Frank in 1903

Stopped at Castle Falls for some lunch



Heading home, just east of Pincher Creek

[86Scotty]

Great pics, thanks for sharing!

[twogone]

x2 thanks

[Pschitt]

Thanks for sharing these pictures !

[rob_gendreau]

Gotta get back to that area, have only passed through going to Elk Lakes and Banff. Recommendations? Heard traveling the trunk rd was nice.

Any permanent damage from the floods down there?

[gnty]

Thanks for the comments!

Originally Posted by rob_gendreau

Gotta get back to that area, have only passed through going to Elk Lakes and Banff. Recommendations? Heard traveling the trunk rd was nice.

Any permanent damage from the floods down there?

Yes you do need to come back! Certainly lots to see whether pavement or backroads.
Ya the Forestry Trunk Road is great with lots of shoot offs and random camping, a bunch of this little trip was on the trunk rd and we camped just off of it.

Lots of flood damage, prob nothing permanent as far as roads but it will take a long time to rebuild and get areas reopened. Some parts of the kananaskis is still closed, some of the trunk rd we were on was washed out but repaired, roads were closed part way off the trunk heading to our camp due to washed out roads, the place looked so much different, those rivers and streams re-sculpted that area.

[lndshark]

Loved your photo edits! Looks like a great area. My wife lived in Canmore when we met so I've been all over the SW side of the province (Pincher Creek) but never out to the slide area. Gotta get out there some time.

[rob_gendreau]

Somewhere else here someone suggested a meet up in Western Canada... This looks like a good spot.

[gnty]

Originally Posted by rob_gendreau

Somewhere else here someone suggested a meet up in Western Canada... This looks like a good spot.

Ya it would be, not far over the border, could hit up Glacier up to Waterton, jog into the Gladestone valley, into the castle area and come out in the Crowsnest pass then up the forestry trunk rd to chain lakes or Kananaskis then to the spray lake area and down into Canmore and Banff and up the Icefields Parkway people could do as much or as little as they'd like, thats mostly fairly well maintained backroads and a similar route could be done on pavement and see some beautiful areas.

[daveb]

Looks fantastic up there. I'd love to do a group run if somebody would set something up one of these days.