Safety
Coming home
You will be more than an hour of rough road from a hospital, in grizzly country, climbing above treeline in October, with no phone signal. None of that is a reason to stay home. All of it is a reason to prepare.
In an emergency
Community Health Complex, 10200 Shand Avenue. Emergency department open 24 hours.
Report A Poacher line, 24 hours. Also for a bear on a kill.
What to tell them
Say: Beaverdam Road, north-west of Grande Cache, at the Caw Ridge turnoff, about kilometre 30. Then give a position. The waypoint is 54.09581, -119.32403, or 11U 348024 E 5996678 N. The ridge point is 54.06271, -119.39073, or 11U 343539 E 5993142 N. The nearest helicopter ambulance base is STARS at Grande Prairie. A two-way satellite messenger lets rescuers ask questions; a one-way beacon only shouts.
Communications
- Phone. Coverage is confirmed in Grande Cache only. Assume none past the highway. A high point may catch a bar; do not plan on it.
- Satellite messenger. inReach, Zoleo, Spot, or a phone with satellite messaging. Test it before you leave, and agree check-in times.
- Trip plan. Leave one with someone who will act on it: where, which vehicle, who, when you are due out, and when to call 911 if you are not.
- This guide offline. Save it to your phone from the overview page while you have wifi.
Bears
This is some of the densest grizzly country in Alberta, and a hunter does everything a bear safety course says not to: moves quietly, into the wind, at dawn and dusk, and then makes a pile of meat. The province's advice for hunters:
- Carry bear spray on your belt or chest, where a hand finds it in one second. In the pack it is no use. Carry a noisemaker too.
- Hunt with a partner. One works, one watches.
- After the shot, make noise as you approach and while you work. Gut and quarter without delay.
- Move the carcass at least 200 m from the gut pile if you must leave it, and leave it in the open where you can see it from a distance.
- Hang meat at least 3.5 m off the ground and 1.5 m out from the trunk, and at least 100 m from camp. Above treeline there is nothing to hang from, so get the meat down the same day.
- Coming back to a kill, approach from upwind, stop well out and glass it. If the carcass has been moved or buried, or a bear is on it, leave. It is the bear's now. Call 310-0000 or 1-800-642-3800.
- Keep a clean camp: food, game bags and bloody clothes away from where you sleep.
Bears and hunters, Government of Alberta.
Cold, wind and light
- Hypothermia is a wet, windy, two degree day more often than a cold one. Pack a dry layer, a shell, a hat and gloves you do not take out until you need them.
- Whiteout. Cloud sits on the ridge for days at a time. The tundra has few landmarks. Mark the track end on your GPS before you leave it, and carry the paper map and a compass set to the declination.
- Dark. In early October you have about eleven and a half hours of daylight; by mid November, under nine. A pack-out that starts at last light ends by headlamp. Carry two lights.
- Water. The crest is dry. Streams start a few hundred metres down. Carry what you need and treat what you find.
- Creeks. Mountain creeks rise within minutes of rain upstream. The crossing at the end of Beaverdam Road is a ford.
Firearms and other people
- The ridge is shared with riders, researchers, hikers and other hunters. Know what is behind your target: on a convex ridge, the backstop is often sky.
- Unload before you get on a quad or into a truck. A loaded firearm in or on a vehicle is unlawful, and it is one of the commonest ways hunters are shot.
- Wear some orange above treeline even though Alberta does not require it.
Packing list
Tick things off as you pack. Your ticks are remembered on this device.