hiketofish

Here's a pic of Cinema Lake. So I'm fishing with my friend and we're in a pool with maybe 50-100 fish, mostly small but with a few big one's sprinkled in. I'm fishing a dry and catching one on almost every cast but they are all tiny. The bigger fish notice the fly come for it, but a smaller one inevitably rockets in and takes the fly. My fishing partner is catching all the big fish including one we nicknamed big fatty with his spinning set up. I suggest that maybe he should switch to a flyrod because its so much more fun. He seems to think catching big fish is fun already and I think he sees through my flimsy excuse to leave the big fish for me. I formulate a secret plan to steal his rod and hide it for a while when he decides to try flyfishing for a while. I don't think I convinced him it was more fun although he actually had the biggest fish in the pool (big fatty) rise for his caddis but just missed him. Here's some of the smaller one's along the edge. I was wondering about the Par markings, do juvenile cutts usually have them so abundantly? Does it mean this trout has some rainbow mixed into it or perhaps all true trout can have those marks. I've caught tons of tiny cutts this year but usually not as colorful when so small and usually a non-descript silvery color. Here's one for Alan or anyone else to guess: A long fire road up this area as well. Its close to the BC border too. There is a named waterfall near its beginning: It has these along its entire length, every pool seemed to yield a few. It also has these probably along its entire length. These two popped into the water about 20 meters from where I was setting up and let out an audible sigh obviously enjoying the water. A slightly closer look. I watched them for a while and then started to pack up my stuff, (I was setting up my rod) and once I started moving about, they seemed to notice me and took off. I decided to not fish downstream...and went up abandoning a pretty good spot. So where am I?

Too easy for Alan. Good job. The tracks (small moose or maybe Caribou) were in the Cinema Lake and Thompson Pass area. If they were Caribou (which they might not be, Any opinions?), it would be a nice story for BNP if some migrated back into the park from BC even if its right on the border. I think the last herd in Banff died in an avalanche a few years ago.

There were fish around although I would not call the lake a good fishery. They were very colorful and although everything I have read says I should only be catching cutts, I'll let you decide. Do juvenile cutts always have so many par markings? Likely because of the sun, but this one looked absolutely golden. Some bigger one's caught that were normal looking. Another one: Some big fish in easy to catch locations. The biggest one's aren't posted because I'm not sure my friend wants to be posted and besides he outfished me with his spinning gear. This was true "fly" fishing. Holding your fly above a pool and catching them 6 inches above the surface. Of course they were only 6 inches to begin with... Now for some track identification: Any chance these are caribou? Or am I just making a moose print seem like one. Here's another one, not so clear. They certainly seemed to have bifurcated hoof. Here's a view on the way out. Anyone think they have this lake and area pegged? No guesses from those that I asked to go with me...

This hike to a lake was suggested to me this summer and once it gets in your head and you buy the map of the area, you just have to go and see what its like. I found someone (not a flyfisherman by the way) to go with me and off we went. This was a totally new area for me so I was quite excited. This lake is a healthy long distance from the trail head although you can split the distance into biking and hiking. The first part is biked on a decent trail, mostly single track with lots of overgrown willows and spruce. Do not do in shorts! Finally you emerge from the forest and get some nice views but have to cross a reasonably sized river. At the end of the road is a weather thingy, Does anyone know if they still collect data? There was one exactly like this up the Howse river. It made an awesome bike rack. Then the hike begins, back into the forest until you emerge back to the river (a different one this time, a tributary to the first one). I was surprised at its size as you have to cross it later. So we get to the crossing point around supper time of a hot day....it was very fast and definitely not crossable where we were so we have to head upstream to a fork where the river splits into two. Now getting upstream was a bit interesting especially with a full pack on. I wish the picture did the angle justice as while crossing this face, there were parts where your hands and feet were in the water edging along. Very fun. We get upstream and find a very big waterfall that apparently just pours out of the rock above. It not even marked on my map but its pretty enough to warrant a picture. We cross the river and move on now going up towards the lake. Here is the lake with a towering peak above it. It is a pretty spot although you really aren't high enough to have unspoiled views. Of course I wasn't exactly coming for the views, I was hoping for some decent fishing. I'll admit that we were too tired to fish when we got there and only had enough daylight to make camp and get some supper going. The next day though, got some pictures from the pack raft and went around the lake. The lake is fairly big and is certainly clear with lots of depth. But what about the fishing? There are fish in the lake., I did see one guaranteed rise but I was kind of hoping for unspoiled really easy fishing.

Yes I posted something last year with my Dad on the same trip. We tried climbing up way to the right and then traversing a thin ledge all the way across. It actually takes you to what would be the top of the crack that is in one of the pictures. The problem is the ledge disappears. It is not the hardest lake I've been to, (that Distinction goes to David Lake hands down) but is the scariest (ie riskiest) for the descent. Anyways Thanks for the nice comments and encouragement to post. No I'm not crazy, just like to Hike and fish. I might post a day hike I did a few days before going to this lake. It helps to relive the hike by making a bit of a story with the pics. Perhaps we'll get a few more hike in (or fly in) fishing trips posted. Here's a few more pics. Here's a pic from the very top (the side peak above the lake) looking down at Hector and part of Margaret. Here's a pic of me flyfishing or flailing away with the lake in the background. When I was fishing along the steep scree, it was amazing how many flies I lost either during the cast or once a fish bit. I think it was because my tippet was getting cut along the scree. The lake is quite big and I believe fairly deep, although not sure how one really tells. In some of the pictures if you follow the left side of the lake to the base of some cliffs, you see a tiny speck of snow to the left of the cliffs. That was where I hiked to. Well that little bank of snow was at closer to 3 times my height and prevented any reasonable casting there. There was no up and around the cliffs either, so I couldn't walk around the lake which would have been nice. Perhaps the next guy can walk the right side of the lake. Here's a small Splake on a Dry Fly. The best way I found to catch then was to cast a weighted pattern out and then start walking along the scree. Usually within a minute the fly would be drawn close to the rocks and I think since I wasn't there anymore, they would bite. That worked way better than stripping it in. One last look at the lake before leaving So I'd like to do at least one more fall hike and I have the go ahead on the home front. Most of the lakes I go to are not the standard run of the mill ones which to me makes them way more fun. I love to either get off the trail or take a seldom used one. You just have to want to come and have okay fitness. Just be like that guy in the shelter. I have three lakes on my radar that I would like to do, 4 if you count the one I went to last year that wasn't the actual lake. I'd love to take a partner that flyfishes that would actually fish the lake we go to. So much more to talk about. So if there is any interest, let me know. Right now I'm thinking of Saturday till Monday night of next weekend or maybe the next. One is in Banff, three are in Jasper. You would need the Monday off.

So what fly does a splake like? Earlier this summer I had spent a day in Narrow Hills Provincial Park in Saskatchewan where there are lots of Splake Lakes and struck out despite people telling me they were the easiest fish to catch as long as you were at the right depth. I walked part way down the shore and set up a rod with a large nymph and a yellow indicator. On my first cast, a fish came up 3 times and took my indicator. I was definitely going to have to rethink this depth thing. I know most people would be disappointed having to resort to dry fly tactics at a high mountain lake but I certainly wasn't. It actually turned out to be only okay as only the small splake come up a eat your dry fly. I did catch my first Splake on the same nymph I started with on the third cast. Just a little guy. I like the markings on their heads. Here's a few more. There were definitely color variations in them. This one was a juvenile and had some of his Brook trout heritage showing The fish were not huge, I would say the largest I caught was maybe 13 or 14 inches. I did not keep any. I did see some larger ones, and missed a few who came shooting out from under rocks as my black wooly bugger went by. I only fished one side of the lake and wished I'd tried one spot on the other side where my hiking partner said he could hear lots of water draining into the leg through the scree. The lake is actually quite large and you cannot walk around it due to cliffs. Here's the view to the side with easy access to the near by peak. He was kind enough to give me a picture looking down on the lake. Part of the Wapta Icefield can be seen above the lake. Well time to go down. It is definitely one thing to go up facing a cliff, climbing on easy to see hand and foot holds, never getting any vertical induced anxiety. Here's a look a Margaret Lake a long way down. If I could go up to this lake 10 times and not have to go down once, I'd do it. There is no simple way to explain how dropping down to ledges with a big void in front of you is knee buckling. This section here, we are both taking a break, trying to get our heart rates back below 200. I know it doesn't look that scary but coming around that corner was super scary on the way down. At times we crawled, walked like a crab, always knowing there were secure ledges and foot holds as long as you didn't slip. There is about 30 minutes of exposure that is unfun where you are on the edge of safe. My waterbottle had become dislodged on the way up and fell the 200 meters or so. It survived. So as happy as I was to make it to Turquoise and catch some Splake, I was even happier to see Margaret Lake again. My hiking partner stated that his "adrenaline gland was on empty". Once back to Hector we had to take a break and get back to normal before paddling down the lake again. I did not catch any fish in Hector by the way. I seem to only be good at fishing untouched pristine lakes. So would I do it again? Probably not, there is definitely some awesome views, some good fishing, a beautiful lake, and pristine surroundings. But the descent was just not that enjoyable. It would be too easy for someone in a group to freeze up on the ledge and not want to descend and usually on a hike, a slip means you hurt yourself, maybe break something. A slip here would not be good. For those who have done similar cliffy hikes such as Ribbon Lake, Canaervon Lake, Block Lakes or Lineham lakes, this one is way scarier (is that a word?). I'm not trying to dissuade people from going the hike as it is rewarding but realize what you're in for and remember that what goes up must come down (in one piece).

I knew this hike was better to do with company. I had everything set up with my Brother to go, had even tried to get some forum members to take a chance and join me but no go and then my brother had to cancel. I was dropped off by family at the Mosquito Creek Campground with no one to fish with. I walked into the picnic shelter and saw a younger guy cooking his supper. I casually asked him if he was going to hike anywhere tomorrow. He said he was but hadn't picked a hike. So in literally 2 minutes, I had a hiking partner...not a fishing partner mind you but that's okay. This is actually a fairly common pattern with me. I can think of 4 significantly hard to get to lakes where my sole purpose was to check out the fishing and my trip partners could care less about even casting once. Here's the early morning start, after a short hike, you can really save some time if you can paddle. I have come to really like this pack raft, very versatile and light. After crossing the big lake, you come to Margaret Lake. Pretty in its own right but not the destination. The crux of the hike is right above you, a fairly significant cliff band that you know is doable based on two prior experiences. There are some old clues from a previous era that lead you in the right direction, faint green arrows. At least a half dozen that I saw. I will add that they are not easy to find until you are a few feet from them. You go up this crack, the picture does not do it justice as to the steepness although going up was not hard. The reverse is petrifying. Here's the guy I met the night before. He is surely enjoying himself. This is just above the crack, a better perspective on the cliffiness of the area. Not a hike to do in poor weather. Then at a particularly steep part that was a bit wet with a spring, we find a chain about 20 feet long. Yes its a bit old and rusty but I was happy to see it. It certainly confirmed for me that we were on the right route. I had heard that the original route had chains at one time, I was super glad to find a remnant. I admit it was sliding through my hands on the descent. Here we are a bit after the chain. Yep its still steep and scary. I was beginning to wonder what the down was going to be like but my anticipation of getting to this long awaited lake was trumping any fear. My new friend is still smiling and we press on. We aren't really getting much higher but are steadily moving across the exposure. Here's a picture of the waterfall and part of a tree you have to go around. One of the scarier parts of the ascent I will add. To think the first time I tried to get here, I climbed 2/3's of the way up the waterfall before it became clear that it was not going to work. You continue to traverse narrow ledges with loose scree, I was wondering if it was ever going to get easier. The excitement continues to grow in me. Would I finally get there, Would there be any fish? Would it matter? What if I saw fish but couldn't catch them, would I have to come back? Finally we hit a gully that we climb straight up, we're finally away from the exposure. We are rewarded with our first look at the lake. It is a dark blue color, I don't actually know if its the color of Turquoise as I don't really know what that looks like. For those who have hiked to Loomis Lake in K-country, it is a very similar color. I will try and post a second part tomorrow. I'm sure you realize that the down is going to be far harder than the up.

Great pics of the area and of course the fish. I fondly remember the "red pass" that you have a few pictures of as I hiked over it on the way to Job lake. Thanks for sharing a great family experience.

My kids do get their electronic fix while driving. They don't seem too keen to play the license plate game like we did as kids or to count power poles. The key to hiking with kids is to take a long piece of surgical tubing, attach to the back of your pack and pull them up the steep hills. Don't let them drift back, pull them up, they never get tired on down hills but ups can finish them. I do admit to packing lots of candy as bribes. There was a big up to Lineham ridge in the first picture. They have contests to see how long they can keep a candy from melting away in their mouth. One bag of skittles is easily worth 10 km of hiking. This was their third backpacking trip of the summer, so they are getting used to it, and even look forward to it.

I was in that area or at least south of it last weekend as well. The wind is what characterized the entire trip. First we were in Waterton, I was with my kids and we were on this ridge trying to get down to some lakes. Yes they are wearing lifejackets....but kids don't care and it kept them warmer in a ferocious wind. We were going to be doing some pack rafting... A few members of our backpacking group couldn't tolerate the wind so we made the tough decision of back tracking. So the next day we went to the Castle river area and I decided to zip the kids up Barnaby ridge. Again the wind was howling. If you turned into the wind, you were almost blown over. I actually had my glasses blow off twice. This is the upper South Fork lake. So someone had decided to make two lean-to type shelters out of spruce bows up there. I'm not sure subalpine areas are the place to be cutting down 50 or so spruce branches but my two kids saw these branches and starting building their own fort. Kind of like a tree igloo I suppose. The branches were cut and just left lying around so they kept busy building. They really wanted to sleep in it and I thought why not. So they popped their sleeping bags in, no thermarests and spent the night. That night (Saturday night), the wind howled something terrible. My three man tent, now reduced to a lonely one man tent flapped and rattled all night long and I had the worst night out in a long time. Maybe 2 hours of sleep. Even the tent floor beside me was flapping up and down as the wind pulled up all of the tent pegs during the night. I'm sure if I wasn't in the tent, it would have blown away. I get up to check on the boys and they are just waking up telling me they got the best sleep ever... I said what about the wind? Didn't it keep you up. No they were sleeping from just after 9:00 PM till 7:30 AM. We had two other tents with us and they also had miserable nights with loud, shaking tents. Who knew? By the way the wind made for lousy fishing up there, although the kids had a great trip. My youngest even said he was glad we had to turn around the first day, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to spend the night out in their own shelter.

Nice pictures and story. I feel for you not completing your goal. Speaking from experience, it'll help motivate you for next summer. One question I wondered about: what is that thing on the log at the horse camp? It looks kind of like a machete, maybe its just a stick. Another thought and please don't take offense but you guys gotta go with one tent for two people. For a 30 km hike or whatever it is, every pound makes a difference. For short hikes it doesn't matter much. Just my two cents but if you go as light as you can and then a hiking partner is suffering, you can take 10-20 pounds from him. If your pack is heavy already, you're done for. Thanks again for posting, that hike wasn't on my to do list, maybe I'll add it.

Pack raft is one chamber. Very rugged though, I'd say its easily more structurally sound than a Belly boat at least the vinyl ones. The weekend before, I went over lots of rocks on the Snake Indian River plus a few trees in the shallow lake and it held up fine. This trip, I dragged it across a meadow for about 2 km on the way to the first lake (mostly marsh and small willow) and again no problems. Here's a few more pics of the caribou, the snow and fishing from the raft. So far I'm pretty happy to have it. Its very kid friendly as well. The male caribou seem to have really powerful necks. This was the only time I heard the caribou when he was shaking this bush. They don't seem to eat the willow leaves like moose do, but rather seem to be pretty picky eaters. Here's the lake from the campsite. This was evening, every morning we had low cloud, snow and or rain. This was a more typical morning, grey cold and drizzly. These guys were seen on the way to the food hanging pole. Here's some from the raft. Another one from the raft on the big lake. I wasn't catching fish but drifting around in circles enjoying the view wasn't bad either. I talked to another guy at the lake. He directed me to a bay he called "Brook Trout Bay". It was all the way across the bay I was in and it took me 30 minutes to paddle to it. I trolled my sinking line with various flies but no luck. Soon I christened it "no trout bay" after doing my best with both types of lines. We did keep one fish to eat on our last night. We ate well that night, as you can see. This was our next day hiking out, the day got progressively better with snow turning to rain and then finally just cloudy. No views unfortunately. Talked to a horse party and they said they'd had either snow or rain everyday for the past 14 days.

So out last weekend with a pretty poor forecast. Periods of rain and snow and generally cold temps. Another National Park hike, all on trails, I was a bit out of my element. No secret where this is, you should be able to tell by the very distinctive mountain range rising up from the lakes. Here is along the way in, its about 23 km to the campground the way we went in on easy (but really really muddy) trails. That night saw the first of many caribou, this really made the trip for me. It doesn't matter how cold and rainy it was when you're seeing these guys. This group had a male caribou that still had blood on its antlers from I'm guessing rubbing the velvet off. He was very distinctive looking. Finally went fishing in the Pack Raft again. You might get tired of seeing pics of it. Pretty neat perspective in the middle of the lake. This lake was a long paddle across. I stopped counting paddles after a 1000. The weather kept changing, some rain, some snow, some sleet. After paddling across the big lake, We went to the smaller lake. Beautiful mountains rose right up from the side of the lake. Finally started catching some fish. Even some on the dry fly, or on a nymph dragged below the surface. Really fun casting to rising fish in a beautiful setting. Then 10 minutes later some weather moved in and really made for interesting paddling, brrrr Next day some more caribou, they are such quiet animals. The big male was more how I imagined a caribou to look like. Fished the big lake the next day. I did not do well. My friend with a spinning rod caught fish from 17-24 inches all from shore. I had the advantage of a boat, and both sinking and floating line and nothing. I trolled streamers, nymphs, backswimmers, and then still fished various flies under an indicator. I felt like I may have set back flyfishing several hundred years... Here's a pic he was nice enough to take showing me in the raft behind a nice rainbow. I know its a vertical fish and I know its out of the water and I told him after to leave the fish in the water when taking his pics. All I got was some nice views. The next day we hiked out in the snow. Several inches by mid morning. Still not a bad weekend to see some weather, some caribou and a few fish.

Thanks Ryan, I will call it 1 mile then. I am going to call the blue one the upper lake, my lake location for peace of mind will be the lower lake...it makes me feel better. My guess is that in a few years, we will all be using real time google earth tracking decreasing reliance on paper maps. Will be harder than ever to make navigation errors. They already have a new gadget out where you have a full screen gps with mapping software that also has the spot GPS tracking and satellite phone coverage so people can follow you at home in real time if you leave it on. (I think its called the Delorme PN60). I had the regular spot gps which doesn't give you any utm coordinates but does satellite phone to an email or phone number your location and gives you an SOS button for emergencies. You still have to use a traditional GPS to tell you where you are which I didn't bring on this trip. I think its still probably safer to have someone go with you but sometimes no one wants to go! Saying that I was invited to hike to some lakes this weekend and I must have built up alot of brownie points at home because I'm going again. Looks like its going to be cold and rainy, maybe even snowy. Should be fun.

So yes, Doh indeed. Invested 10 plus hours to get in and stopped just short of the real lake. My 1:50 000 map certainly wasn't showing two bodies of water but you can see the remnants of a lake on Google Satelite view where I was. Will get over it....in about a year, maybe two. Here's a nice pic of the hike showing burn on one side, green on the other and trail right down the middle. Overall the hike was low on scenery as its in the forest the whole way. The burned out areas did make it nice though. One last look of the lake. Sure looks likes a lake to me. Ignorance would have been bliss, dang Spot GPS.

First fish was a juvenile rainbow I think..., man is this lake shallow. Catching fish by the submerged logs, only about 3-4 feet deep. This fish seemed most definitely a cutthroat. My resource says both rainbows and cuts were stocked once, so maybe all hybrids?? Only caught tiny fish, nothing big. The whole lake was shallow. Would be really tough from shore though so happy to have the raft. (my rationalization) Life is good, looking back down the lake the other way. The next day I decided I'd had enough catching tiny fish and decided to head to the Snake Indian River. Would involve bushwhacking and I'd have to navigate a narrow section but seemed doable on the map. I left at 10:45 that morning. After retracing my steps downstream for several km, I stopped for a break and caught my biggest fish yet, a nice cut from the stream. Then onwards bushwhacking to the crux of the hike. The stream roars around this bend and goes into canyon walls but never on both sides, I'm really hoping for no waterfall where I'll have to turn back. I am good at turning back by the way. So I criss cross back and forth and soon get through the steep section and make my way down to the Snake. It was slow going, likely a km per hour, through lots of prime berry country. I'm hoping though to get to the river and try to paddle down. My first view of the Snake Indian River, man it's big and deep. So I get my pack raft blown up, modified plug still working but I decided I'd stop every 10 minutes and blow in a bit of air as some was escaping slowly. I hit the river and away I went. I was hoping for a fast class 1, but there were tons of rapids and rocks. The raft was awesome in the class two and big standing waves, I didn't like going through the recirculating waves and avoided holes. I had to stop and empty out about a dozen times and was starting to get tired when I didnt' have the right angle on a small ledge with a hole behind it. I didn't lean hard enough downstream and flipped upstream in a heart beat. So now I was adding swimming to the adventure which thankfully I'm quite good at and had done tons of growing up learning to paddle. I got to shore emptied out, and hopped right back in to warm up. It was a bit less fun the rest of the way as I was getting a bit cold and boy did I holler out a whoop when I hit the Celestine Lake access trail bridge. It was now raining on me and all thoughts of spending the night on the river to fish in the morning were gone. I was wet and cold. So hike up to the parking lot and quickly get everything out of the pack and some drier clothes. I boiled a quick liter of soup to drink and then packed everything up sopping wet and decided I was going to trudge to the car. The fun part of this is that its now 9:15 and its dark. So headlamp on, I walked the 3.5 hours back to the Vine Creek trail head, that made for a long 14 hour day. Good fun all the way around...so why the term Misadventure for this title? I get home and check the emails that I had sent with the Spot GPS and can't believe it. Go ahead and google these and see where I was (or wasn't). You need to zoom in on satellite view. The green arrow is where I camped. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&...p;z=12&om=1 So close, 800 meters maybe. Who knew, How would you?

So had this lake on my radar for several years now. A little bit off the beaten track in Jasper National Park. I had begged friends and then co-workers to go with me and nobody on this forum took me up on my offer so I was on my own. Would make for faster hiking but would rather have someone to share all the fun experiences. This trip, I was also keen to try out my packraft on a remote lake that might or might not have fish in it. The hike started early Saturday morning, I hit the coffee shop before 7 and was hiking by 7:45 up the Vine Creek trail in a drizzle of rain from a morning thunderstorm. Here's the start going up Vine Creek off the Celestine Fire Road. Tons of willows to hike through which since they were soaking wet made for a wet start. They were never really thick though and more of an inconvenience than a barrier. Here's a pic of a wolf track and a bear track in the same mud, going different directions at the top of the first forested pass. An old horse trail made things a lot easier even with tons of deadfall. I was expecting to bushwhack and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the trail. Here's a pic of the Mt Cummock Fire and the next pass I'm going over. I was a bit worried about the fire section but it turned out to be some of the easiest to hike through and easily the prettiest. Getting closer to the lake, here's the creek coming out of the lake and the first thing I noticed in the reeds was minnows! Here's the lake, pretty if I do say so, but really shallow, didn't feel right. There was lots of remnants of old horse camps so I unshouldered my pack. It was about 5:45 PM. I sent a GPS spot signal back to the worried wife that I had arrived and then set up camp. I actually had an amazing amount of electronic devices this trip but that's technology for you. Boy was I eager to fish. So I unrolled my raft, set up my tent, and noticed that somehow I'd lost the plug for fast air escape hole on the raft. They warn you to tie the thing to the raft but I hadn't got around to that yet. Notice how wrinkled the raft is as it just has the air inflation bag tied to it. Lucky for me, my generation had watched MacGyver growing up and I was keen to fix it. My first attempt with the air inflation bag failed miserably and I wasted a 1/3 of a roll of duct tape. My next attempt was with a circular toothbrush lid wrapped to size in duct tape, but still leaked. Added some plastic from a ziplock bag. Better but still leaking. Why didn't I pack the teflon tape I thought or some vaseline...than I remembered the gink. It was cold so it was a gel consistency and I smeared it over the plastic and much much better. Not perfect but now I could get out on the water. I wondered what type of fish were here and if I could catch any.

Well summed up by Uberfly, It is always about the trip and fishing is a bonus. Last year I tried and made it to David Lake. Number of hours hiking to get there: 15 hours to the lake, number of fish seen or caught in David Lake: 0. But that trip will forever be burned into my memory banks because of the adversity. Oddly enough I hardly ever hike to places that have no chance of fish. The fishing is the draw but there doesn't always need to be "catching". This trip we tried to find a different route which I thought might be safer and although it was a bit skinny in some of the areas and perhaps we should have had helmets on to mitigate the risk of falling rocks against a cliff wall, I don't think it was that risky. Keep in mind we turned back, in fact I've turned back twice now, and the disappointment lingers but didn't ruin the trip. This trip I am more likely to remember flipping the raft in the river and starting out wet and cold and figuring out how to get two people across a large lake than the actual hike. I will remember getting my Dad out to a place that he likely wouldn't have gotten to on his own. I admit to enjoy trying to get to off the beaten path places that have fish. I'm guessing the people that put fish into some of these lakes must have felt the same way as some of these lakes are heinous to get to, but that's part of the fun.

Yes the two man luge technique lasted about 5 seconds before we flipped in the river. Fisherman are apparently not meant to luge. There is a better route to the ledge that joins it. I did find a green arrow but definitely was no white paint helping out after that. It can be done as a scramble, just don't fall or slip on the way down as there's zero room for error. We tried to stay on the ledge the whole way across the cliff to actually miss the exposed part of the scramble and we almost did it... The first time I went I tried to climb the waterfall (don't do it). Hopefully third time will be the charm. Here's the green arrow showing the way.... The other lake below in the picture has fish in it, but not worth the hike to just fish that lake unless you like catching small Brookies. It is not the fishery it used to be.

Yes its an Alpacka raft. They are pretty much the only company that makes a really light packraft. It is an honest 5 pounds, the 4 piece paddle is just shy of 2 pounds and then your lifejacket. There a few places in the states where people are fishing with them and I've always wanted to take my kids out on the lakes we hike to. What really got me thinking of carrying a raft was the last two major hikes I did where floating out would have been tons easier. I would love to do Harvey Lake again and this time paddle down the river about 30 km, probably 5-6 hours) rather than hike it (took 26 hours). I'm hoping to use it this weekend again at another tough to get to lake (by myself so far) in JNP.

So I wanted to try getting to a lake in the National Parks again plus try out a new toy. This is a packraft I got off the internet. It weighs 5 pounds and should make for many new opportunities to explore some new waters plus get to the middle of some of those alpine lakes where the fish are only jumping beyond your casts from shore. It is designed for one person but will definitely take two people. We tried sitting facing each other on the river but the front person got a lot of splash in the rapids and then tried the two man luge technique and promptly flipped it... We did paddle across this large lake with the two of us (facing each other) with relative ease. We would have been susceptible to wind had there been much. This is me in front of the first look at the next lake. The goal is to get above the background headwall. No easy task I assure you. I'd already tried once before and was too chicken at the crux of the hike. We (my Dad and I) tried a different route going way to the right. This is the ledge you have to figure out how to get to. Here my Dad (67) is a bit above his comfort zone but keeping up. He knows I want to get to this lake. So far so good, doable but not for those scared of heights. And then the ledge gets too narrow...and we have to turn back. We've actually been on the ledge walking for several hundred meters and its only 20 meter space that is bad. There is another way up and we found it but that will have to wait for another day. There is a helpful green arrow showing you the way of you look closely at the base of the cliffs. Unfortunately it was evening by this time and we needed to turn around. I think it can be done as a scramble but would be wiser to put in a rope anchor at the crux (scary part). Here's a view from near the top that everyone who goes here takes. I've taken this exact pic before. So I'll give it one more go sometime. The packraft makes it really easy to get there. I would be interested to know if anyone else has one as I have some awesome trip ideas that would be way more fun (and safe) with some company. There are some headwaters that beg to be hiked to and then floated (rafted) down.

The company was advertising Golden Trout adventures and once you pay a helicopter company, I assumed they knew where the lake was. I had the 1:50 000 map with me but wasn't checking it during the flight. It was my first ever helicopter trip and I was enjoying the ride, not navigating. I'm sure they had good intentions and I think they honestly thought they'd dropped us off at the right lake. On the way out, I did wonder when I hiked below some lakes of what I know now to be Coral Lake whether it was the actual lake but it was snowing at the time. A good thing to remember is that Coral Lake is quite small. There are numerous bigger lakes very close by, of course they don't have any fish. In hindsight, I should have done more research and I certainly did the next time I went to Coral Lake. No refund for me although I was told I could negotiate a deal if I went again. I didn't know for sure of the mistake until I was back at home for a while. Back then I was fishing every body of water I hiked to anyways. I even carried my rod on the skyline trail and fished Curator Lake for like 2 hours... Thank goodness for the internet and some good reference books. Sometimes your fishing trips turn into hiking trips.

Great pictures. Boy do I have some sympathy. First off, its not the first time that particular helicopter company has dropped someone off at the wrong lake but your story ended much better. Good for the pilot to come back for you, that's really awesome of him. Here's what happened to me about 10 years ago. I planned a trip to Coral Lake with the intention of flying in and hiking out. We had 4 days. The first day was cloudy and we didn't get to take off till the afternoon when the cloud cover briefly disappeared (we were flown in by the owner). We flew in and were dropped off at a Turquoise colored lake that had a C shape to it. I fished the rest of that night with nothing to show. The next day it snowed on us, turned cold, and was overall miserable. I still fished all day both flyfishing and spin fishing and nothing. My friends were fishing as well and we tried every hook we had. I remember I lost my pack rod case in the snow the next morning before we we trudged up and over a pass into the next valley. I knew there was some lakes above me in this adjacent valley but we had 40 plus kilometers to hike so wasn't going to check them out. (Foreshadowing hint) It was snowing at the current elevation and as we descended down to Coral lake, it turned into a steady drizzle. If anyone has done that hike up Coral creek up towards Job pass, you have to cross Coral creek like 20 times, so we were like frozen popsicles by the time we camped that night. We hiked out the second day and drove home to Edmonton. A few days later I showed my pics to a friend of mine and the first thing he said to me was: That's not Coral lake, it should be oval in shape and its clear. A fish and wildlife friend confirmed it as he'd been their as well. I remember the emotions that knowledge gave me and anger was definitely high on the list. In fact I'd almost put that memory out to pasture until I read your post. I did make it back to Coral lake two years later and continued hiking from there to Obstruction Lakes, Job Lake, Brazeau lake and out via JNP. That trip has many more fond memories than the first effort.

Much better guesses. The last "first name" you guessed is correct.

Uhh no.