Kakwa Falls Trip (1 Viewer)

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Apr 22, 2010
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Winter wheeling trip was awesome! The seasons are changing and we talked about laying down some plans for summer adventures. Looking at late June early July for a trip to Kakwa Falls which is south of Grande Prairie. At 30M it is one of the larger falls in Alberta! A beautiful area that I've been to many times in winter on snowmobiles, but never in summer. You can drive ATV or 4wd vehicles within 1.2km of the falls viewpoint, and then walk from there. There is a day use area at that point. If we had a few hours, which would be nice, then might be able to trek to the bottom of the falls as well. Random camping is permitted, and there are 2 larger staging areas at the start of the trail. The last Sasquatch sighting was sometime in the 70's so who knows what could happen!

Tentative plans I had was to drive to Grande Prairie on a Thursday or Friday afternoon/evening. Camp at a friends acreage south of GP near the Wapiti river and wait for stragglers.
-Sat morning drive to Sherman Meadows then wheel the trail to Deadhorse meadows.
-Walk in and have time at the falls.
-Wheel the trail out to a random camp spot for Sat eve.
-Sunday the drive out and back to E-town.
Or, if we started on a Thursday eve, we'd have Sat to explore another trail in the Grand Prairie or even Grande Cache area. There must be something off Highway 40 between GP and Hinton... anyone know about this area?

Some area info with link to the trail map.
Alberta Parks Kakwa WPP Recreation

Explore Kakwa Wildland Park

New Dates Sept Long, Labour Day Weekend 1, 2, 3

So post up your interest. River crossings may be deeper depending on the melt though. My brother once spent a few days camping whilst drying out his flooded 4 runner after floating it on a crossing!
 
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I do believe my schedule is open for June/July, except for the weekend of July 20th (Possible Silverstar riding weekend). Need to confirm with the boss for sure though ;)

I will check in with our guys up in GP to see if they know of any truck friendly-ish spots up there to play around.
 
I'd love to do a weekend trip up there. Just pick a weekend that works for you and we can argue about it from there and then pick several weekends that don't work for most people and then come back around to the original weekend in the end and then change it last minute.

I live in Hinton so it's nice and close for me. I would be rolling in Friday after work. I've only lived here for 8 months but I can ask around and see what some older locals know about what's up north around grande cache and beyond.
 
I’ve done a fair bit of fieldwork between GP and Hinton. I’ve driven that road a lot too. What sort of spot do you want?
 
I'd love to do a weekend trip up there. Just pick a weekend that works for you and we can argue about it from there and then pick several weekends that don't work for most people and then come back around to the original weekend in the end and then change it last minute.

I live in Hinton so it's nice and close for me. I would be rolling in Friday after work. I've only lived here for 8 months but I can ask around and see what some older locals know about what's up north around grande cache and beyond.

Would be great to catch up with you buddy. Its been too damn long!
 
I talked to a local who has either driven his military jeep or flown his plane almost everywhere around here. He has heard of it but never driven there, only flown over. He lent me a map called the "oilfield road map of grande prarie region" it is quite literally exactly as it sounds. According to this map the only way to follow service roads to two lakes park is to pretty much go all the way to grande prarie. But if we're willing to be adventurous and explore a bit it looks like we can connect some of the service roads through trails or seismic lines starting just north of grande cache and it puts us out at two lakes park...more or less. Might be worth a day trip for me before hand to see if its do able so we don't waste the whole weekend trying to winch 5 trucks through 300 meters of muskeg.
 
I’ve done a fair bit of fieldwork between GP and Hinton. I’ve driven that road a lot too. What sort of spot do you want?

Any trail, scenic or otherwise that would be fun to attempt. Something that we can camp at and build a fire to keep the mosquitos at bay would be great as well.
 
I talked to a local who has either driven his military jeep or flown his plane almost everywhere around here. He has heard of it but never driven there, only flown over. He lent me a map called the "oilfield road map of grande prarie region" it is quite literally exactly as it sounds. According to this map the only way to follow service roads to two lakes park is to pretty much go all the way to grande prarie. But if we're willing to be adventurous and explore a bit it looks like we can connect some of the service roads through trails or seismic lines starting just north of grande cache and it puts us out at two lakes park...more or less. Might be worth a day trip for me before hand to see if its do able so we don't waste the whole weekend trying to winch 5 trucks through 300 meters of muskeg.

I had this thought as well, "I wonder if there's a way to Two Lakes from the east..." and looking thought the only sure way in was via GP. We could always try it on the way out with everyone who has a day to give it a shot.

Would be great to see you Jon and Jeremy out again too!
 
Have you seen the Back Road Book issued by McIlhenney Surveys? It's an amazing
source of info. Sorry if I got the survey company name spelling wrong, but its'
a good book
 
Are you referring to the "backroad mapbook" with black and orange colour theme on the cover? If so that's what I'm looking at right now. Naturally I needed the northern alberta edition to have the kakwa area on it but I don't think you can ever have enough maps.

Km 150 on the rightly named two lakes road is the two lakes rec area. Looks to me, from Grande Cache, take hwy 40 north of the kakwa river, from the north side of the river you can take service roads %90 of the way to the two lakes road. The trick is going to be that last %10. The "nose mtn ohv trails" will cover that last portion and put us out at km 120 on the two lakes road...in theory.

So to answer the question, Yes, there are roads that will take us there without having to go all the way to GP then back 150km south. It will just be a game of picking the proper roads and knowing that it will likely end up taking longer and burning more fuel than going the long way around. And we can cut that even shorter if we are willing to venture down some ohv trails. If we take some wrong turns maybe we'll get lucky and end up on the "nose ridge road" which looks like 25km of 4wd mandatory road on top of a ridge that I imagine has a good view or two.
 
I am game for a 4wd mandatory road on top of a ridge!
I have patch maps on my gps that can aid in the actual drive as well. Should have all the service roads in that area mapped out.
 

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