2010 -- Backroads in the East and West Kootenay       

Update on Evan Mountain
trail and Road
Meachen Creek, South Purcells,

• Some friends are planning to do the trail this Friday so today my wife and I went there to clear away some brush on the road and make the start of the trail obvious; we expected the road to be overgrown and impassable as you describe in the "deleted hikes - old book" section on your Web page. To our surprise we found that the road had been brushed out all the way up to the old parking area at the start of the trail. We had no trouble driving up the road and parking - there is plenty of space for a couple of vehicles. A high clearance vehicle is not required but there are a few places where a low car would bottom out; I never had to use my 4x4 drive.
  
  You can now update the information for Mt Evans and people may now start using the trail again.
  
  Seeing as I had my chainsaw with me, we then spent a couple of hours enlarging the parking area, clearing brush so that the trail sign is very visible and cutting trees and brush all along the road. One can now drive up without having to worry about overhanging trees or brush scratching the vehicle. The 4x4 post at the start of the road does not have any writing on it to indicate "trail" but I added some flagging to make it obvious. If Lisa agrees, I`ll make up a small sign for the post to say Mt Evans Trail.

Evan Mt Hike included in
deleted hikes from my second edition on this website.

DD

Horsethief FSR Welsh Lakes Thunderwater Rd

Closed Sept 17, approx Oct 1 or as long as Oct 8th . for bridge replacement.

• *** New Update They will start on the Forster bridges and will not have them completed until at least October 1st and the latest should be October 8th.
  Delay about a week until about Sept 24.
• 
  Horsethief-Forster FSR (Welsh Lakes; Thunderwater Lake; Catamount Glacier) at approximately 21km from August 30, 2010 until September ??, 2010
  
• To facilitate bridge removal and replacement these roads will be closed to all traffic while this activity takes place. As these roads are quite narrow with limited turn-around space, roadside parking will not be allowed in order to accommodate transportation and operation of large trucks and heavy equipment. Closure dates are approximate.
  
  
• Trail notes: Forster FSR in good condition, dry, ruts at km 19, 28; they are dry but have to be careful if low clearance. Camped near km 39 in pull out on south side of road, 536018 5611508; bridge across Forster creek about 50 meters west. Drove up to Thunderwater Lk parking area (as usual, rough and steep) attempted to make Thunderwater, could not cross drainage flowing north from Catamount glacier, level too high and fast, turned back. Beautiful area however. Today hiked up to Lower Welsh lake, trail in good condition, no problems following it. Another amazing area, will be back to explore more.

BCFS








and trail notes by CH

Horsethief FS Rd Closed
Lake of the Hanging Glacier

Aug 23, Sept 17 for bridge repair/replacements

• New Update *** The bridges on the Horsethief should be finished this week by the 17th. Horsethief FSR (Lake of the Hanging Glacier access) at approximately 41.5 km from August 23, 2010 until delayed to approx Sept 17, 2010.
  
  
• Trail notes: Horsethief FSR in good condition, dry, dusty in spots. Camped at Stockdale FRS, km 38.5, access sign on south side of road. Road bikes to Lake of Hanging Glacier trail; trail in good condition, except trail is covered with avalanche debris about 1.0 km before the lake, extends for about 250 meters, pink ribbon marks route.

BCFS

and trail notes

CH

Kootenay River Road
Closed Aug 23-27

• TEMBEC will be closing the Kootenay River bridge located at ±33 km on the Kootenay FSR from August 23 to August 27, 2010.
• This closure is required to complete repairs to the deck.
• They will be posting the road with notices.
  
• Alternate access routes to the area are via the Ravenshead, Palliser and White-Rock FSR’s. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
• If you have any questions in this regard please contact me or Adrian Messerli at TEMBEC Canal Flats.

See this link for the map
Kootenay 33 km bridge.pdf

BCFS

Tanglefoot Lake -- Terrific hiking area. went to both passes, (I think). Quite a few vehicles at the trail head(s). Very nice people from the area. Many children and dogs!
The road is horrible! Maybe ditch the vehicle and MTN bike the road. what to do with dogs and little children? An honor to be in such a place!

Janice Strong notes: Road is definately 4x4 high clearance it is getting very rocky, but the tread is still drivable, but very slowly. There is a huge rough spot just before the Fisher Peak Trailhead that may need extra care as to not gouge the base of your truck.

Bear Lake and Wildhorse Creek

• BEAR LAKE CLOSED FOR TWO WEEKS --
• There is a dead bear at the north end of Bear Lake. Hikers be aware because the carrion may attract other grizzly bears feeding on the smelly carcass.

Also just in from the BCFS

There was a grizzly bear shot up at Bear Lake last week and the carcass is still there (self defence). The CO’s and the Ministry of sorts arts and tourism the ones who take care of our rec trails have agred to a 2 week closure of the trail until the carcass is gone.

The Wildhorse has been signed at the beginning of the road and also at 20km where the access road takes off of the Wildhorse. Could you please put this on your website, thanks.

Wildhorse Creek FSR has a few narrow spots where a potential wash out may occur.

Damage in 2 spots between 17-19 km markers.

LT

BCFS

Wildhorse Creek Upper Road and Trail access

• Three of us with a chainsaw and one of the MTCA brush saws, cleared out the mess of alders and brush for the last 1.6 km of the Wildhorse, from the oufitter`s cabin to the campsite before the stream crossing. The brush was making it impossible to get through that section without scratching any vehicle that tried to push through the vegetation. Yesterday, I went back with a couple of people to do the Nine Basins hike and found the road had deteriorated badly in that time due to the heavy rains. A high clearance vehicle, preferably 4X4, is now required to navigate that section.
  
  As for the trail, we put up some flagging and some orange trail markers to help people find the trail to the stream and then up to Nine Basins. The section up the creek bed is wet and very muddy but worth the trip up to the ridge.

DD

Here is the road update from the BC Forest Service

Cranbrook Area

• ** Phillips Creek Road (Baldy Lake trail) is in very good shape.
• ** Wildhorse is open to the back end
• ** Lakit Lookout road is open bit of snow at the top but passable
• ** Bear Lake road should be open
• ** Mause Creek rd open to the Mause Creek trailhead-snow on the trail
• ** Rd open past Fisher Peak
• ** Dewar Creek open to Hot Springs parking lot
• ** Meachen Creek open and side road leading up to White Boar Lake is open and Meachen Creek FS Rd is open past Hourglass Lake trailhead.
• All our roads seem to be in good shape also.
• ** Grading is ongoing for FFT to Storm Creek on the Ram
• ** Elk River Rd open to the park-1st 36km is very fast so be careful.

Here is the road update from the BC Forest Service

Invermere Area

• ** Jumbo – wet, rutted sections especially in the first couple km.
• ** Delphine – deactivated, culverts removed at 2km (Mt Nelson trailhead), ATV accessible.
• ** Horsethief (Lake of the Hanging Glacier) – rough in spots, maintenance work being conducted over the next week or so to improve. *Note: Farnham access is Road Permit road, blocked at this time by an avalanche at 43km, currently no plans to clear/maintain.
• ** Horsethief (0-42km) – generally good condition, graded 0-13km last week.
• ** Forster (Welsh Lakes; Catamount etc) – wet, rutted sections, spot grading to take place during the summer.
• ** Frances (Tiger Pass; Septet; McLain Lake) – good condition to trailhead parking lot.
• ** Bugaboo (Chalice; Septet; Bugaboos; Cobalt Lake etc) – wet, rutted sections, some maintenance to take place during the summer.
• ** Cross (32km and beyond; Whiteman Pass; Miller Pass etc) – generally good condition, holes in bridge decks.
• ** Albert (Ralph Lake; Lehman Lake) – good condition, washout repaired at 56km.
• ** Palliser (Queen Mary; Joffre) – good condition, washout repaired at 50km.

More Info on Roads from the BC Forest Service

Invermere Area

• Access maintenance has and/or is being completed in the following areas to allow for ‘Forests For Tomorrow’ (FFT) activities:
• · Harrogate fire
• · Moscow fire
• · Queen Mary fire
• · Middle-Fork White River fire (Seeta Creek area)
• · Lussier fires
• · Magnesite fire
• · Mutton Creek fire

We will be performing maintenance work on many roads in the area throughout the summer as conditions allow.

** BRIDGE REPLACEMENT activities may take place on the Spillimacheen FSR at Parson crossing, and replacement of 4 down-rated (5 tonne) structures on the Horsethief and Forster FSR’s are planned for later in the season.

The bridges in the Horsethief and Forster will be replaced between August 15th and September30th.

There may be some delays or closures depending on the crossing.

Templeton Lake Road is very overgrown with alders and your truck needs to really push to get up the last 2 km of road.

The first part of the trail is now a creek /gully but hike able and the bridge at 400m has now its end underwater. It is fordable.

Conor Lake trail has many blow downs when hiking from the White River /Canal Flats side.     

The burn through the area in 2005 is still evident with burned sticks of trees and not much sun cover on the route.

A small group of retired fellows associated with the Kimberley Trails Society has been working for the last two years to clean out, repair and mark the trails up Pyramid Creek and Alki-Murphy Creeks. With the approval and support of the MTCA, official signs posts have been erected at the trail head along the St Mary and at the actual start of the Alki-Murphy trail (one can now drive the 3.2 km from the St Mary Road to the trailhead). There are also directional signs in place at the first mine site on the Alki trail and additional signs will soon be installed at junctions / significant points on both the Pyramid Creek and Alki-Murphy Creek trails. Both trails/routes are now well marked with orange trail markers or blazes where we ran short of markers and we had cut out all the winter/spring blow down on all trails except for a section on the Murphy route.

We had hoped to have all the work finished in time to have the two rehabilitated trails included in your latest edition of Mountain Footsteps but given our small number and the time needed to have both trails officially listed as MTCA hiking trails, it was not to be. We did manage to get the magazine Go Kimberley publish an article on our work in their Spring 2010 issue (#10) which you could probably still find. We also provided GPS data to MTCA to include with maps for the trails.

I am attaching some info on the two trails which should be of interest to people looking for interesting,and challenging hikes into the alpine and over high (8000 ft) passes and with geat views as a reward.

St Mary Lake Road -
Dewar Creek FSR

Click here for offical trail map from MTCA




Info sent my DD. info from my first book.

Text info for the trails.

Pyramid Creek

Alki Creek and Murphy Pass

DD

Contact Janice for the trails info from DD, Kimberley.

In August three of us with a chainsaw and one of the MTCA brush saws, cleared out the mess of alders and brush for the last 1.6 km of the Wildhorse, from the oufitter`s cabin to the campsite before the stream crossing. The brush was making it impossible to get through that section without scratching any vehicle that tried to push through the vegetation.

I went back with a couple of people to do the Nine Basins hike and found the road had deteriorated badly in that time due to the heavy rains. A high clearance vehicle, preferably 4X4, is now required to navigate that section.

As for the trail, we put up some flagging and some orange trail markers to help people find the trail to the stream and then up to the basin. The section up the creek bed is wet and very muddy but worth the trip up to the ridge.

See deleted hikes from second edition for trail and road info for Evans Moutain Hike, in the southern Purcell Mts.