hiketofish

Din is getting very close. Surely one can name the first name of a famous Explorer in the region. Its not "Joseph" Howse or "James" Outram.

Not Norman. The Norman Lake I've been to is on the way to Pinto Lake or going in the back way to Michelle Lakes via sunset pass. If it helps the lake is in the same big river drainage as Norman.

That would be a funny name for my brother! Think first names.

I like reading about other people's fishing trips so its fun to post a fun trip. A lot of simple errors conspired to having us bushwhack in the dark, like forgetting my headlight in my clothes bag, my hiking partners' light needing fresh batteries that were also at the tent. Leaving a bit later in the morning (due to fishing!). Also it would seem that following an outlet creek would be considerably easier if it didn't disappear underground. Now if I had caught fish at the lake it would have really been a long night. When I first got there, I knew we only had a half hour to fish. The lake is really clear and there is extensive gravelly shallows and a short outlet. It is deep in the middle and off the cliffs. I fished close to the cliffs in this pic but didn't see any fish. Here's another view of the lake. The lake has the same name as my brother however I think it was more likely named after another famous explorer who plied this area hundreds of years ago. It would be a short scramble to get to the top of the mountain also bearing the same name should you make it to the lake. That should get you started if you were curious. I'm fine if someone wants to guess it or thinks they know it. You can likely do this trip early season (lake would be frozen though) or late in the Fall as the river crossing would be dangerous in the summer. Don't expect company or a trail although you might find numerous broken willows where we plowed through. I'd love to read your post if you go.

So we keep climbing and turn the corner of the mountain hoping we won't be cliffed out. We decide to take some pretty sketchy ledges as not to lose any elevation We weren't too happy about how exposed we were so we resolved to go back a different way. But the good news is that we could now see the waterfall coming out of the lake. Finally we get to the lake. Its taken more than 5 hours to go 5km so it wasn't the easiest up. I think its pretty beautiful but of course I've just invested 15 hours getting there. I fish (with spinning rod as its very windy) for 30 minutes. Its starting to sleet and its now 5:00 PM so we figure we better leave. A long way to go to not catch fish, maybe they are still there?? One last look of me fishing the outlet. We head for home deciding to go down the drainage....big mistake. Here's our first cliff. There is a big cliff just after those rocks. We have to go way around. Here's the same cliff from below, the previous one is from that little notch in the left middle of the cliff, notice the wonderful bushwhacking we had to go through to get to this picture point. It was heinous. Steep thick willow and spruce, part of the adventure I guess. We get to another cliff and have to go around, and then the stream canyons and we have down climb a dicey moss covered cliff. Its now dusk. We have mistakenly only brought one headlamp and have left the GPS back in the tent by mistake. We keep following the creek which is supposed to go to the un-named lake which is where I hope to find my bearings and go out the same way we did the day before. We decide to get on the right side of the creek and figure we will go until we hit the lake...it is now very low light and we are using our one headlight. I notice that it has a red light on at the back showing low battery. Excellent I think, part of the adventure. We have fresh batteries back at the tent. Soon we begin to go up which is not making any sense. I look at the map and note a height of land but it is way left of where the creek is on the map. We had been very conscious of staying right of the creek. Alas the creek disappears somewhere....and we have obviously crossed back over it unknowingly in the dark. So we aren't lost but we're not close to our tent either. An hour into darkness around 8:45 or so, our headlamp is gone and we are now bushwhacking by moonlight trying to get back to the river flats where the tent is. Bushwhacking is slow in the day time, you should try it at night without a light. So we finally stumble upon the un-named lake and make a beeline for where we know the river is. By beeline, I mean 500m in about an hour. We hit a beaver dam that we know is close to the river. Unfortunately we choose the right side of the beaver dam (small lake) and a small cliff blocks our path. So into the icy water we go (thankfully only waste deep) and trudge around the small lake. We come to the river and make a very dangerous cross, you can't judge where the shallow spots are at night... Now we are on the correct side of the river and need to just go up stream about a km and find our tent. Wouldn't you know it the river narrows into a small canyon. We could enter into the river and try to edge our way up or we could climb up over the canyon cliffs in the dark and endure more bushwhacking. We foolishly decide to stay in the river as we are already cold and soaked. All is going well until the rock juts out into the river and we have to go around it. We put our hands on the cliff face and literally pulled ourselves up inch by inch until we got around it. Funny how that was the most dangerous part of a long day. We slog into camp freezing cold and start heating up some water for soup and supper. It is now well after 11:00 at night but we do get to enjoy the stars... Here's one last look up the valley. Notice all the cliffs and headwalls. It also shows the higher route coming around the mountain on the left which is definitely the way to go.

So last week managed to convince a few people to join me to try and get to a fairly remote lake in our National Parks. Research suggested that it had been stocked a long time ago but few reports ever made it out, so was worth a try to get to. By my estimation it would take two days to get to and big river crossings. so up the river we went eventually finding a named lake that we were going to stop at but there was pretty poor camping in the area. so we pushed on to an unnamed lake. Unfortunately getting there required some bushwhacking. Part of the adventure I suppose. We passed the next lake, its un-named hoping to camp there but there was nothing to camp at. Surprisingly we didn't cross any creeks as expected as the next day we were to go up a side valley that was supposed to have a pretty good creek in it. Here's a look at this lake from above (next day's hiking) So we continue bushwhacking and eventually find the last lake that is named and camp there. Here's the first view of it. It is forest encircled so not great for flyfishing. I had a spinning reel and fly reel and used both. There's definitely closer spots to catch bigger brook trout, although still lots of fun. Next day, decided to venture up to the goal lake. I decided to go up around the mountain instead of following the drainage straight up especially since the day before, we hadn't crossed any creeks, and I wanted to avoid some bushwhacking. We hiked from left to right above this cliff band. There was great views up top. You can see a fairly well know pass.... Alas it wasn't without its challenges as we ran into this horrid kind of willow or alder that grew laterally that was very very tough to get through. Here's a better view of how it grows laterally from the ground for a bit before growing up.

Yes its a steep in and out but not really too dangerous. Here's a pic of what is dangerous: the short way in to these lakes coming up from the valley coming up to the lakes. I clambered below the lowest lake to have a look and maybe do it but was too chicken to walk the narrow ledge (in the wind no less) to the scree on the right. The following picture is one of two ways down to the lakes. You start right at the top of the mountain in the middle of the pic and work your way down diagonal. Looks impossible from a distance but its not cliffy, just really steep. On a side note, no one can tell me what those berries were? The first lake is in JNP and more of a just get up and see it lake with lots of small Bull trout although not much casting room for flyfishing.

Here's a pic of a what's in the lakes: A few more nice pics, notice how the weather has changed. Hiking back out. I did mention that it was windy didn't I On the way out saw a really nice Big Horn Ram, here it is with my point and shoot camera Here it is with an SLR with a telephoto lens that my friend had: I have one more trip that will hopefully go in a couple of weeks to see some fall colors in the parks.

Went to a few "hard to get to waters" in our National Parks in the past couple of weeks. This one is a fun trail if you don't mind following a faint trail with good blazes on the trees. Would not want to do this on a wet day as you do the breast stroke through the willows for much of it. Finally it opens up to some rock walking until the beaver dam section. How do beavers get this high up in a drainage and make a go of it? First look at the lake, Further down the lake, very silty in color, no rises nothing, at little unsure if there was fish, but all the books said bull trout. The books were right. There's tons of little one's, I didn't catch one over 14 inches. Here's an old bridge on one of the tributaries to the main creek running out of the lake. Hoping someone will tell me what kind of berries these were. They were berries, orange and yellow. Heaps of them. Second trip a week later at some different lakes: Nice view along the way. Fairly easy to catch fish, but wind was an issue. Yes there was whitecaps. In fact you'll see pretty soon that the weather changes.

Back to the original question, I'd vote for marmot. Last year I saw a couple of wolverines for about 10 minutes and two things really stuck out. One is their gait or running pattern. Its very distinctive (think weasel). It was certainly different than the critter on the video. Second is that they are quite compressed or narrowish in body. Kind of like a Goldeye I guess. They are not wide flat animals like the one on the video. Of course I'm not an expert by any stretch, and I've never seen their young. Plus I've never seen Marmots go jumping across a stream like in the video. When I saw the wolverine for the very first time, I remember thinking smallish grizzly and then it ran. Its weird what really sticks with you but I won't soon forget its bobbing gait. Here's a small pic of it from last fall.

Not Glacier Lake, much smaller, and not silty, but drainage is right.

Not alot of Guesser's I see. You should not ever see fishing reports from this lake and it flows into this river: That should make it easy for any that were curious.

Not Mystery Lake near JNP, I've never been to that one, I had heard that it winter killed. South of there in any case. Not in Kananaskis Country either... Here's my first look down its valley from its headwaters. Lots of neat features along the way including some natural bridges.

Perhaps would be fun to guess... Its in Alberta, central rockies. Lake is named. Large drainage into and out of it.

Thought I'd share some pics again as I enjoy viewing and living vicariously through other's picture posts. Just a point and shoot camera but hard to get to locations seem to make up for lack of camera skill. Trip started up a steep walled valley, lots of rocks. Lots of tracks in the mud, I really liked the claw marks. Never saw them, but they were obviously around. These looked pretty fresh. Then a lunch spot close to the pass. Lunch spots should always have worthy views. Imagine my surprise finding these at 8300 feet and coming from a different valley than I'd just climbed. I have so much respect for where Grizzlies roam. Then down to a lake I'd just picked out on a map as a need to go to some day. Looking Northish Looking Eastish The best view was to the South east. This is one of my favorites This one just has nice colors. I remember reading a post on the old board where a guy was reflecting on his morning coffee views while at Obstruction Lakes. Now that I have grown to like coffee in the mornings, I have always tried to take some morning coffee pics as well. So here's the same view as above but with a bit more snow for the hike out...

Very good year for me as well. More lakes this year than rivers likely because I was taking kids a bit more often. I caught my first fish over Easter in the upper NS at the beginning of April and then caught many many fish this past Saturday on the Little Smokey. That's likely it for me this year unless I visit Calgary and try the bow in the winter time. Will need some help with that initiative. Running waters: Upper NS, Lower NS, Bighorn, Maligne, Prairie Creek, Cameron Creek, Little Smokey, Lakes: Resolute, Helen, Geraldine, Pyramid, Aster, 3-Isle, Crypt, Goat, Crandell, Cameron, and of course Harvey. Plus Muir and Cardiff near Edmonton. You can tell I hike to more lakes than I drive to. I explored several hike into lakes in the Jasper area that appeared to be fishless but pretty tough to tell and found a few neat tributaries to explore that must go nameless. Still waiting to catch a Splake and a Lake trout in Alberta. Must try harder in the Spring I think. Still some hard to get to lakes out there. Almost convinced my wife to let me go into Lineham lakes in Waterton but there was a ban on all off trail backcountry stuff in Waterton when we visited. Have also had some potential hiking partner inquiries which is nice as you never know when a trip will come together or if someone will drop out on you and you need someone to go with.

I have been there 4x and I have only caught a few in the lake and all were where it drains out, but have always done really well in the stream that flows out. This year we caught multiple age classes from 10 inches all the way to 15 inches. They don't fight great and come in pretty easy. I imagine they don't get to swim far and strengthen up when you spend much of your life in a 50 meter stretch of stream between two water falls.

After Harvey, had planned a fun hike over the Northover Ridge in K-country, the next weekend with family. It is one of my favorite 3 day trips as the days are fairly short hiking and the fishing is quite good. First step is to do the easy trek to 3 Isle Lake starting from the Interlakes parking Lot. We were fortunate enough to see a whole herd of mountain goats on a neighbouring peak. I consider myself lucky this year to run into goats while hiking twice. Not so lucky that it snowed and was freezing cold for the rest of the day. In fact it was cold all three days, with heavy frost. In between snow flurries, we got some nice pics of 3 Isle lake. Managed to catch some fish and give my brother some fishing lessons. The fish pictures are on his camera. I can't believe I'm posting on a fishing site, with no fish pics. Here's a morning fly. Then its up to the Northover ridge, and a rare picture of hiketofish Hiking the ridge is very beautiful on a clear day. Here's the BC side: Here's more of the ridge: Then Down to Aster Lake. Aster Lake is really a gem of an area. The lake itself is really a giant mud puddle and you are thoroughly convinced that it cannot contain fish. Seldom if ever do you see a rise in the grey water. Pleasant surprises come however if you fish it. How many fish do you think are in this muddy section of the creek which I waded once and it was knee deep? My brother and I caught more than a dozen from that spot just swinging a nymph with an indicator. Because its so muddy you can literally get a bite from 12 inchs away. Then you hike down to the parking lot. I have done the hike both ways and it is much easier doing it counter clockwise. If you do it, don't forget your fly rod.

Here's a few more pictures. This is another of Harvey Lake. Flyfishing went like this for me. First place that looked fishy I cast out a big dry fly, I think a chernobyl ant. I waited patiently until a big rainbow emerged from the depths and then promptly broke me off. Then nothing for a while and then I watched as two fish cruised together in the shallows and I caught the smaller one. Unfortunately at the lake, you are very limited in back casting over much of the lake. I did okay flyfishing but would have loved to have fished it at a few select spots in the evening. Not really a destination you're going to bring a float tube to. There were definitely spots around the lake that you could flyfish quite easily. Here's the exit stream before it turns into a tight canyon with waterfalls. You could not help but catch a fish here every cast but they were all small. Good to see I suppose in an self-reproducing lake. So I walked around the lake, doing some flyfishing, some spin fishing. I was a bit curious about this scat, more because of the color. If it was black, I would assume it was bear and it likely is but the color threw me off. Any Scat ID'ers out there? Hiking down the snaring (remember not a good idea) there are some real cliff sections. By cliff sections, I mean you have to climb way up and around and then way down to go like a couple hundred meters. Here's a couple of them looking down. Yes there are more than one of them. While you are hiking up above the cliffs, you may as well climb over a few trees. They were endless it seemed. This is a good example of a cliff we decided to wade/swim. Didn't do this to the last day, I would actually make that choice again given the other option. Lesson learned, will not hike down the Snaring again.

Thanks for the nice comments. I'll post a few more pictures when I get a chance. You have to remember that I really do love backpacking especially to fishing destinations. In fact it is rare that I hike to places that don't have fishing potential. It really is fun to look at maps and dream of going to places and then to try to make it a reality. I know that I am not alone in this pursuit. Anyone that likes Backcountry fishing needs to get Fishing the Canadian Rockies by Joey Ambrosey. A really good read and the last time I was in the Fishin Hole (North Store in Edmonton) they had some copies at 40% off. It doesn't look like a good book from its cover but great info. I actually went hiking the next weekend doing the Northover ridge trail as I covet those September weekends for hiking. That is a great 3 day hike with good fishing at both camping nights. Kind of boring though that there isn't any bushwhacking or route finding. As for my hiking partner, he missed 3 days of work, and I think this weekend was going to try and wear closed heel shoes again. He's been confined to slippers for a some time now. He got a great experience that he won't forget. The Wolverines really did make the trip for me, especially since we got to sit and watch them. Just awesome! They are quite tall (but thin) when they stand up and sniff the air.

Things I'd have changed: 1.) I would have loved to spend a night flyfishing in the shallows of the lake near the outlet stream. Unfortunately it was a long way to hike for just one trip around the lake. Our original plan was to spend another night at the lake but I felt it was too risky regarding our timelines. Because of this, I kind of feel that I didn't stop hiking the whole trip. So you need 6 days or more period, or comfort that your group can do long days and be fine with it. 2.) I would have brought more waterproof bags. We really got soaked on the third day as it rained all day and we were climbing and crawling over wet stuff the whole day. You need to protect your dry stuff. Plus since I'm a diabetic, my blood glucose tester stopped working on that day once it got wet. Not a complete emergency as I have good experience on what to do with my insulin while hiking but still, should have carried two of them to be safe. I know better. 3.) I would have went out the way we came in, based on my partner. I really, really wanted to go out the 4 pass route but at that point I was trying to make the choice that my partner could endure. We thought the Snaring was that choice. My sense of adventure of going somewhere new got the best of me. In hindsight, the route down the snaring is 30 km and it took us 30 hours to hike it. The first 10 km are easy, there is 17 km of nasty, heinous, awful sections then 3 km at the end that are easy. 4) I wouldn't have forgotten my GPS. (I left it on the kitchen table) As fun as taking a bearing in the dark on the last night and hiking for two hours until we hit the river again, the extra confidence of knowing exactly where you are would be nice. I like map and compass use and do it exclusively in adventure racing but would have been good to have an exact UTM reference in case a rescue would have been needed. 5) We brought a big comprehensive first aid kit, at least I thought we did but we just about emptied it of all gauze, tape, bandages, wraps etc. You just never know. I guess we were lucky we were dealing with just one pair of bad feet and not two.

The next day I hiked around the lake and fished. I flyfished where I could and cast a small panther martin with spinning reel in sections that I couldn't fly fish. Here's a couple of fish. Not monsters, but still big rainbow and alas my two biggest fish, one on the spinning reel and one on the fly rod got away. After one time around the lake, about 6 hours for me, we decided that we had better start the hike out that evening. So we packed up and went back down to the Snaring and hiked downstream until 9:00 PM. My hiking partner had spent the day recovering and drying things out and tending to his feet. On the way down from the lake I picked a whack of blueberries and the next morning my cream of wheat was to die for. We had three choices, take the 4 pass route that I had heard was difficult up and down but out of the trees, back the way we had come or hike down the Snaring River which was the shortest route by 10 km but we had been warned not to go this route due to the terrain. We got up early the next morning, we had two days to go about 25 km down the river. It was not fun: We hiked 10 hours that day and did not get even half way out. The river was hikable but would then turn cliffy and you would have to go up steep sided hills and hike over deadfall after deadfall. Our last night we worried about whether we would make it out. My partner now had swollen ankles, open wounds on his heels and pain in his knees. Good fun we joked, we were backpacking. Our last day we were hiking by 7:45 AM and started the hike by climbing up nearly 600 vertical feet of cliff, going a few hundred meters and then back down to the river. It took us 2 hours to go a distance of 500 meters on the map. I made the decision that when we came to a cliff section we would hike in the river beside the cliff until it abated to save time. We did this twice. Both times my partner ended up swimming. I had times where I was striding along not touching bottom but I stayed up right. I figured we saved 2-3 hours doing that. The swims however made my pack really heavy. I was already carrying as much of the gear as I could as my partner was hurting. In the end we got out the Snaring arriving at the Yellowhead at midnight, 16 hours after we started. I congratulated my partner as he had really endured a lot of pain and suffering. Quite an adventure yet no one would stop at midnight for two stranded hikers. Finally a taxi went by and was happy to take a fare back to Jasper.

After much planning and pleading for a hiking partner, I decided to venture to Harvey Lake in Jasper National Park. Rumors of good fishing in a remote section of JNP was all the motivation I needed. I managed to find a hiking rookie from work that was willing to go. I only had 5 days to do the trip and the "in" to the lake was 40 km. I figured it could be done with some long days of hiking. Off to Jasper we went on a Wednesday and decided to hike as far as we could starting at 6:00 PM. We hiked until after dark around 10:30 and under a near full moon set up our tent. We were most of the way up Elysium Pass and my hiking partner was struggling with the up but we were happy to be on our way. The next day we hiked from 9-7 through an alpine meadow section named Monarch meadows. It was easy hiking to a low pass with only a few bushwhacking sections but still 10 hours of hiking Here is from the top of the pass looking towards the headwaters of a creek that we would be following all of the next day. Our goal was to get to a lake that an old Jasper Outfitter Curly Phillips had used when he used to travel to the lake in 30's. But alas some movement caught my eye, something was coming towards us with a big furry animal in its mouth. It dropped the animal when it saw me and scurried off into the willows. "I just saw a small Grizzly" I announced to my exhausted hiking partner. We watched some more before I realized that it was no Grizzly but something much rarer to see. I'd just spotted a Wolverine. We crept a bit closer and hid behind a rock to watch as I knew that it would come back for the animal. Sure enough we got to watch not 1 but 2 wolverines keep standing up sniffing the air cautiously trying to come back to their kill. I managed a few blurry pictures and one clear one. We watched the wolverines for 10 minutes until they stopped coming back into our view. I really wanted to go and see what I was sure a dead marmot but refrained thinking we shouldn't be disturbing such a wild animal. Too bad you can't zoom in on these resized photos like the originals. The Wolverine was about 25 meters away. Excited but also a bit fearful for hanging our night's food we plodded further down the valley to our destination. A beautiful un-named lake that really felt like our own private lake. It had very old signs of camping like broken branches but not even 1 fire pit. It was still pristine and we kept it that way. The next day we followed at times a very faint horsetrail, and other times a heinous bushwhack. Did I also mention that it rained the whole day. We started a 8:30 in the morning and hiking through soggy mossy forests and willows that had us soaked to the bone. It was wet and cold. Here's some of the actual trail we went through My hiking partner was really struggling with his feet but we pressed on. As we got close to the snaring river, we lost all semblance of trail and hiked down some steep horrid willowy sections until finally reaching the Snaring and crossed it (just shy of waste deep). It was now after 5 PM. Our plan was to press on to the lake. Wet and exhausted, mildly hypothermic, we made it to the lake around 8:30 PM after climbing up its outlet creek, yes 12 hours of hiking. My partner's knees ankles and open blisters on his heels were making me worried. I was worried that my excitement and passion in getting to the Lake were clouding my judgement. I was very fit and experienced, he was not. Here's the first look at the lake. We ate late that night but we had made it to our destination. We set up our tent in the pouring rain at 10:30 that night. Did I mention how much I hate setting up tents in the rain with no discernable area to set up. We settled for a mossy section that was quite slanted but free of willows.

Has anyone hiked up the Snaring river any significant distance? I know its straight forward until it becomes a steep walled canyon. Has anyone tried to hike up the canyons on either bank... Any Jasperites on the board? If you have hiked up one side or the other did you hike up the East or West side?

THat would be a hard hike to do with a float tube. Lonefisher you told me you weren't a strong hiker I'm doubting that. Yes the boys did the whole hike in rubber boots. In fact they have hiked to Helen Lake in BNP and a few others in rubber boots as well. Rubber boots if they get wet, you just empty them, put on dry socks and your good to go again. I think only Adults complain about their feet while hiking. Kids just need to have frequent breaks for treats (gummy worms, various candy, and water breaks) They hiked 6 hours on day 1, 5 on day 2 and 3. Can't be done without rewarding them for hard work. They carried one set of dry clothes and one pair of extra footwear and a book to read to them at night. My pack had all 3 sleeping bags and thermarests plus all the rest of the standard gear. THey picked out the suppers, we had hotdogs and mashed potatoes one night and macaroni and cheese the next. Not my usual meals but they sure looked forward to them. On another note, if anyone has hiked up the snaring river any length please PM me. I think I'll post the question in the other section as well.