Misadventure

[hiketofish]

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.

 

[hiketofish]

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?

[birchy]

So you meant to go past where you were to the emerald blue lake I'm assuming? Doh!

 

Looked like an amazing adventure nonetheless!

[ÜberFly]

Looks like a heck of an adventure (by the by, there is still "adventure" within "misadventure"!)!

 

Glad you had a great trip!

 

P

[troutlover]

I just laughed so hard i think i peed a little great post.

[navigud]

 

Leaving the parking lot can be an adventure, you my friend are in need of some therapy!

 

always enjoy your posts btw

[SteveM]

Note to self: Never, ever tag along with Hiketofish.

 

Bro', you is a krazy mofo! Thanks for sharing the crazy with us sane folks.

 

[Bandi]

Sounds like a great adventure...rafting the Snake Indian River without a proper plug, flipping her over and swimming sound a bit too extreme for me, though

Nice pics and story, Hiketofish.

[Noud]

Wow that is adventurous fishing....I can only dream of that.....

[fishfreak]

Maybe one day you'll have a successful trip full of 18" cutties on the dry from a secret hard to access lake in the middle of nowhere.

 

Love your adventures!

[whataniceguy]

I would be scared crappless out there, I could never do something like that by myself. Just giver dude!

[Castuserraticus]

Part of would love that kind of trip. The nearly 50 year old parts aren't so sure.

[reevesr1]

Maybe one day you'll have a successful trip full of 18" cutties on the dry from a secret hard to access lake in the middle of nowhere.

 

Love your adventures!

 

He probably already does, just keeps those stories to himself!

 

Great story as always! 800m, hey? Oh well, you know there are fish in it!!

[hiketofish]

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.

 

[PeteZahut]

Awesome post! I always look forward to and enjoy reading your posts!

[birchy]

1.7km as the crow flies, according to Google Earth (provided that's the right lake I'm looking at):

 

[hiketofish]

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.