Another trip to the mountains. I’ve lived in Alberta all my life, and have been out to the Rocky Mountains countless times. The funny thing is, each time it’s a different view, and it takes my breath away every time. I will never get sick of going to the mountains.

The edmontonjeep.com (EJC) club has been out to the Ruby Falls/Watson Creek area quite a few times already. EJC is only about a year old or so, but because there is only so many places to wheel in the prairies, we seem to head out that way quite often. This time we were bound for the Watson Creek campground, where we have stayed before.

We drove from Edmonton to Edson in a Jeep convoy, which is always fun. Upon arriving at Edson, we all filled up at the gas station right on the east end of town. Tim had noticed some severe vibrations while pulling in, and when we stopped we noticed he had only 2 out of 5 lug nuts remaining on his driver’s rear wheel. Seems as though the lug nuts came loose and eventually fell off on the highway, and when he slowed down to in-town speed, the wheel moved about, and sheared off three wheel studs!! Tim didn’t have a spare axle shaft, but luckily Ian did. Chris threw on his coveralls. I didn’t realize he had until I was watching him crawl under the jeep, and seeing him in coveralls in the gas station parking lot struck me funny. We swapped the axle shaft, and put the tire back on. No other damage was done, and Tim was lucky it had not come off on the highway.

Half the group stayed and helped, and half went on to secure some good spots at the campground. When the later group was done in Edson, we headed off into the dark. It was about 10pm or so by the time we headed out, and it was still at least an hour to the campground. As we were driving down the last bit of gravel road, nearing out destination, we got pulled over by a ranger. He told us that he didn’t want us staying at the campground, and that if we did, we better not be the cause of any complaints. Last time we were there I guess we were too noisy. :( I’m usually too tired to stay up and drink while camping.. I’m usually one of the first to bed, so this came as a little surprise to me.

We stayed that night at the campground, and packed up in the morning with intentions of finding an old Trapper’s Cabin (which is a mobile trailer stuffed up in the woods, not a cabin) to use a camping spot. Bill seemed to know where he was going, so we got to the trail head, aired down, and continued on our way. About 5 minutes into the trail he was having some issues with his rear drive shaft. He had a look and notices one of his u-joints had seized up. The pin bearings were all crushed up, so we removed another cap from a spare drive shaft, cleaned up the bolt it had damaged with a razor, and slapped it all back together. No one had any grease, so we had to put the cap on mostly dry, but it held up for the weekend.

We were making pretty terrible progress.. two break downs and we hadn’t even gotten to the wheeling yet! We found the Trapper’s Trailer, and there was a guest book in the trailer so you know the guy expects people will stay there once in a while. There is a good size fire pit, an outhouse, and a partially cleared area big enough to fit the ten or so tents we had amongst the trees. To top off our awesome camping location, it’s up in the mountains on the edge of a treed cliff. There is a spectacular view from the outhouse! Looking the other direction, back towards the way we came in you can see the continental divide. No neighbors, and no other campers.. What an awesome place to camp!

We headed out for the trail, and I was excited because I had not yet wheeled out here. The trail does up and down all over the place for a good hour before it intersects with a cutline in the woods. Before we got to the cutline, we suffered another breakdown! Ryan had installed an electric fan in place of the sock I6 fan clutch a couple months back. The fan stopped spinning and seized up.. we didn’t have any other way to cool his rig, so it was left behind, and we picked it back up at the end of the day on our way back. The cutline is pretty amazing. It stretches all the way from the top of one mountain, down into a valley full of muskeg, then continues all the way up another mountain on the other side. We turned towards the steep end of it bound for the top of the mountain, and ran smack into one of the worst hill climbs I’ve seen. It’s very steep, long, an is covered in loose shale. Quite a few guys tried to make it up, but in the end only those with at least a front locker were able to make it up. Bill made it up, he is running a TJ with 4″ lift, 2″ body lift, 35″ tires, and is locked front and rear. Colin made it up. He is running a TJ with 3″ lift, 3″ body lift, and stock rubicon lockers/tires/wheels. Gary made it, he is running a WJ with a long arm lift, 33″ tires, and lockers front and rear. Tim made it up too, and he is running a TJ with no lift, 31″ tires, and a front locker. It’s really too bad the pictures don’t ever do it justice, but Gary did get some great video of the action from the top of the hill, including Chris’s YJ (Mac13) bouncing around like crazy, struggling to stay on the ground as he climbed the hill. That was pretty scary and funny to watch at the same time.. heh. Damned leaf springs! When he couldn’t go any further he tried to winch up, but his winch gave up part way through the pull. A few others tried but didn’t make it up, and a few of us didn’t bother or were too scared to try. There is a less steep but still pretty tough hill climb a little off to the left that the rest of us went up. Once on top of the hill it climbs a little bit further, then opens up to the top of a mountain.

The view from up there is pretty incredible. Facing the same way we came in there is a rock face, and not much else to see but when you turn around you can see pretty much nothing but mountain range. Taking my TJ to the top of a mountain, does it get much better than this? After some necessary poser shots, we headed back down the trail. We went all the way past our original entry point on the cutline, and continued down into the muskeg for some fun.

It wasn’t quite like the muskeg that we have in the prairies.. the whole ground down there was floating. You can jump up and down, and the water in a stream 20 feet away will move. It’s amazing, but real difficult to drive in. Any wheel spin at all and you chew through that top 12 inches or so, and get stuck immediately. Lockers and nice wide tires really helped a lot, and we spent a lot of time working, pulling people out, etc. There was two small streams that the trail crosses, and it was pretty much impossible to get across them. The water was only about 2 feet wide in spots, but it was just enough to let you sink so you can ram your front bumper into the other side. We ended up winching and pulling everyone through… once we got through the muskeg we headed up the cutline on the other side, and it was a pretty simple but slick and muddy climb. As soon as we got over the hill on the other side we saw another huge area of muskeg to cross.. it was getting pretty late at this point, and we were not sure if that trail went out to a road or not, so we turned around and headed back towards camp. The trip back was pretty eventful though.. The muddy hill that leads into the previous muskeg area was not as easy to get up as it was coming down. Gary and Kyle both got stuck really badly and needed to be winched out. Most of the rest of us found a small bypass that passed between two trees barely wide enough. The trees were rubbing my fender flares on both sides, and were about an inch away from my soft top on both sides passing through. We eventually all worked our way up the hill, and the rest of the way back to camp was all baja.

We spent the night at camp, did lots of drinking, and made lots of noise. Hey, there’s no neighbors but the trees, and they won’t complain! We decided we weren’t going to go wheeling on sunday, mostly due to the 4 hour+ drive home. We headed out in the morning/early afternoon, went a little more scenic route home through Hinton first, then back to Edson. It was an awesome trip, and I can’t wait to go back!

Chris: Snapped a fender flare in half, winch no longer spools correctly outwards
Tim: Broken wheel studs, bent fender, snapped off fog light
Colin: Severely dented oil pan, smashed fog light
Bill: U-joint cap failure on rear drive shaft
Dallas: Bent tow hook mount on frame
Ian: Broke both milk jugs off
Ryan: Seized electric fan
Kyle: Tweaked fender