Almost Famous

My years of exploring and recording my exploits has caught the eye of at least one other well -known website north of the border. I was asked permission to have my Alberta tracks used (for non-profit) so that foreign tourists could have a better shot at seeing some of the, otherwise unknown, fantastic local riding. My pictures and descriptions were used, nearly word for word. The only disappointment was the lousy first picture of the hay bales, certainly not one of my best!

The site is Called; Gravel Travel and is home to the TCAT or Trans Canada Adventure Trail, I had a hand in one section, from Fernie to Fort Steele in British Columbia, as it was me that mapped it, and provided the track.

Link: Gravel Travel Canada - The Rocky Mountains

This is the Adventure Rider site that the info came from (Hail knows it): Calgary & Area Tracks - ADVrider

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If this helps some visitors to Canada, see some more of what our amazing country has to offer once you get off the beaten path, then I will feel that I have accomplished something useful. In some small way I will have made a stranger's life better, which isn't a bad thing.
 
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Congratulations Lee! I knew someone would recognize your talents sooner or later! :woot:

Now if only someone with money or an interesting job offer would! :rofl:

I would have preferred either of these pictures be used, as opposed to the Hay picture.

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or
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or even this one.
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Which captures the Rockies and riding better than the crap Hay picture.
 
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The Alberta Project

Not long ago I was asked to help develop an Alberta tourist Dual-Sport route that would cover the highlights of our provinces widely varied terrain. This would be featured on the website Graveltravel.ca. I caught the attention of the site developer and fellow dual-sport enthusiast when I helped with a section of the Trans Canada Adventure Trail (oddly enough) in British Columbia. He has used many of my pictures and descriptions on the website already but wanted a “destination” route that foreign travelers could spend a week or two enjoying. The variety of terrain in Alberta is somewhat unique in it’s variety and I wanted to showcase it while still covering the spots that first time visitors would feel they “had to see”. After back and forth consultations the route ended up with more pavement than I first planned in order to make a final route that “flowed better”.

As anyone who has read or seen my posts in the past, I am never short of photographs, but for the first leg of the route out of Calgary I was. I set off this Saturday, early to test run the first leg of the route and fill in the pixel-gaps. To be honest, I so rarely travel east out of Calgary because I prefer the Mountains that I wasn’t looking forward to the run with my usual enthusiasm. The route needed to be checked since I had made most from memory and pieced together past tracks. The Calgary City section I had driven recently and had no doubts about so I connected to my “route” from the south, joining it in the outlying suburb of Chestermere.

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The beauty of back-road travel is the lack of traffic and today’s run would prove no exception. Other than the towns and short sections of pavement, I had the roads to myself. Considering that Calgary and the surrounding communities are home to over a million and a half people it is telling how few venture off the tarmac. I snaked my way across the landscape to the little farming town of Rockyford, to find that they had pulled up the rail-line that once was the reason the town existed. The gravel rail-bed was all that remained, the steel and wood gone, so I took the opportunity to ride through town the way the trains used to. I rejoined the road where 2 years ago I took a picture of my bike parked on the rails.

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Just east of town I came upon a “happy accident” in my track routing, that took me across an old road that now was a barely visible two-track dividing two farmers fields. If there was gravel, the wind erosion had long ago buried it with topsoil. I thought to myself that I will have to make a note; “Do not do this if it is raining or has recently rained or you will curse my name, being stuck so badly the farmer will have to drag your sorry ass out with a tractor!” Today it was dry, although the way the sky was looking, not for long. Today, this was the highlight of the ride so far. The dirt trail dropped into a river valley and intersected the now defunct rail-line and crossed an ancient wooden bridge, eventually joining a gravel township road. This is what I ride dual-sport for and for a time it felt like I had the world to myself.

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I crossed a couple of secondary highways and dodged the clouds for a time as I dropped into the valley that the tiny cluster of buildings called Hesketh hides in. Crossing a river on another wood decked bridge I climbed up out of the valley only to drop down to another river and to a cable-ferry crossing. I had to dodge a rattle snake that was sunning himself on the road as I cruised down the hill. I didn’t stop for a picture as rattle snakes are not known for their social niceties. I was the lone occupant on the west to east crossing that was so smooth I could have sat a cup of coffee on the seat of my bike and it would not have spilled. Like the approach, the road exiting was paved and had big sweeping curves as it climbed steeply up to the flat landscape above the river.

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I took the opportunity to stop at the Horse Thief Canyon overlook for a couple of quick pictures and again at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller. I was on a mission so a quick stop to refuel and I was southbound away from the bustle of the touristy town of Drumheller, famous for the dinosaur bones that permeate the hills of the “Badlands”.

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I stopped briefly at the Hoodoos, the Atlas Mine and East Coulee Bridge, and the remnants of the town of Dorothy on my way to Dinosaur Provincial Park. I had intended to break up the loop by camping in the park, but weekends book months in advance and there wasn’t a spot today. I really wanted to get some pictures at sunset and sunrise, the best time to bring out the colors in the layers of rock that surround the park. Instead, at the height of the day, I took a few quick pictures (with clouds) of the muted but amazing landscape from the viewpoint above. I toured the campground and did the short driving loop in the park before continuing tracing (and checking) my route to Brooks. It had started to rain, the dark clouds building into thunderheads and releasing their cargo on me. The fuel stop I had known for years in Brooks was gone, razed to the ground, so I had to find an alternative near by, making a mental note to change that on the route.

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Despite my focus and haste the miles (and photo-stops) had eaten up more of the day than I had planned and it would be too late if I did my original homeward route. I had accomplished what I had set out to do today and was about 400 kilometers further along on the odometer. I hated to do it but I jumped on the Trans-Canada Highway heading west toward Calgary. The sun was back out, the clouds having carried on eastward. The wind had picked up and I was fighting a strong crosswind, but despite it, making good time. As I cruised along on a highway I had literally driven thousands of times as a truck driver I was going over escape points on my mental map. I knew the area well enough that my GPS unit and the Back-road Map in my top case were unnecessary. By the time I topped the hill at Cluny I knew how I would “get off this mind numbing highway”. The bridge south of Cluny had been damaged in the 2013 floods in Alberta and was finally repaired, allowing me to cross, cut across the Indian reserve and join the irrigation canal route that I had planned to get home. My highway shortcut had taken over an hour off the originally plotted return and I had time from this point to do it.

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The last time I did this route I was new to dual-sporting and the rain was pouring down. There was a hill that was a nasty, slippery nightmare, but today it was just steep, and rutted from water run-off. It looked disused and overgrown, the bridge at the bottom covered in a thick layer of dried mud from back in the flood. There was a section of approach still washed out and the trail of gravel switchbacks up the other side was in bad shape. This made it all the more a challenge and more entertaining, but maybe I’m a little bit masochistic? The road along the irrigation canal was really loose and marbled with deep gravel in places but I made great time on it with no one else to be seen. I was back into Calgary and home in time for dinner, tired and a little bleary-eyed from sun and dust, but satisfied.

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The track had enough variety to keep tourists entertained, with history and little gems like the dirt two-track outside of Rockyford. Tourists would stop as much or more than I did, and would probably take in the Royal Tyrrell Museum (it is an amazing place even if dinosaurs don’t fascinate you) so is a good length for a day. Weekdays, Dinosaur Provincial Park is easy to book into and has all the amenities including; showers, proper washrooms, a store and commissary, amphitheater, hiking trails, etc. The route showcases a completely different landscape than the mountains that most tourists think of for Alberta. I did my best to have it twist across as much of the badlands and surrounding valleys as possible and to be as entertaining as it can be. It covers only as much pavement as it had to with gravel, and dirt in quantity. It shows you hidden treasures of Alberta’s Landscape tucked away in spots that only those curious enough to get off the beaten-path will ever see.

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Ford raptor?

This is only the start of the odyssey that is the Alberta Project.
 
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Actually NO

Doncha mean da Kootnies?

They are a couple of trenches over from the Front Range of the Rockies near Calgary. Front Ranges - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and west of the Bull River in British Columbia.

FYI: Info: Types of Mountains & Ranges

Good reading.

"Info: Types of Mountains & Ranges

Though many people assume the Rocky Mountains reach all the way to the Pacific, they are only 120 miles deep from east to west. The "Rockies" consist of four sets of ranges between Alberta's foothills and the Rocky Mountain Trench/Columbia Valley. Each of these ranges is separated by parallel valleys.

The Front Ranges are those east of the Bow, North Saskatchewan, and Athabasca Rivers (for those driving, east of the Bow Valley Parkway and Icefields Parkway). The eastern slopes of this range were worn down by multiple glacial periods and rise over a mile above the height of the foothills. The Endless Chain Ridge, runs with a knife edge for 20 miles on the east side of Highway 93 always a mile above the roadway. These ranges are relatively dry, sitting in the "rain shadow" of the more westerly (and often higher) mountains."

List of mountains of Alberta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Canadian Rockies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

North American Cordillera - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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This thread (and others too) makes me wanna book a plane, get my gear, get a bike locally and ride, ride, ride through these beautiful sceneries....Great pictures, great job !
 
Thanks

This thread (and others too) makes me wanna book a plane, get my gear, get a bike locally and ride, ride, ride through these beautiful sceneries....Great pictures, great job !

That is the point of this whole project so I'm glad that it is having that affect.

Looks you're short in need of a new rear tire :Rockon:

Yes it had over 18,000 kms on it now and is 4 mm away from the casing. Maybe next month, another Mitas E-07.
 
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