Outdoor Video Magazine

Length: 5km (one way)
Time: 2.5-4 hours round trip.
Book: David Thompson Highway - A Hiking Guide Book
Elevation: 1400m-1600m
Date Done: March 17th 2007
Effort: Low-Medium
Rating: 7/10 in Winter/Spring
Map: 83 C-1 Whiterabbit Creek, 83 C-8 Nordegg (not needed)

This one is a bit different from my normal kinda hike. A fun, rock-hop up a stream bed with some interesting terrain/features. Turn round when you get bored/have to go home.

The start of this hike is a bit hard to find…there are three wide gravel unnamed stream beds in approximately the right place (38km West of Nordegg, 3km West of Whirlpool Point). However, on closer inspection, the right one has a large cairn on the North side of the road (and a small flag when I was there), and there is also a 4×4 track leading down to the stream on the South side of the road.

Then there is no trail, just start hiking up the stream bed. This was nice in March because there is little water, and it was mostly frozen so you could hike/slip up the ice, or rock hop. Whatever takes your fancy. Or you can walk along side out of harms way for a lot of it too. In times of highwater..there will probably be some wet-feet spots. But I think it would be good fun to try and get up there still!

After 1.5km you come across the hoodoos that give the creek it’s name. They are the best hoodoos I’ve ever seen. There are nice views back down the narrow, v-shaped valley to Lake Abraham too.

Carrying on up the stream, there are some fun boulders to clamber on, and some good slab with nice cracks for the climbing types to mess around on. The valley narrows into more a gorge type feature in places.

Our hike was made more interesting when we rounded a corner to find a huge wall of snow blocking the valley in an otherwise snow-less area. Avalanche! This was pretty recent too looking at it…no more than a week. We took full advantage and had a mini snow battle, before pressing on to explore the cave at 3km-ish from the start. Keep an eye out for it, it’s located at the top of a scree/talus slope on the righthand side. A faint path can be found up to it. If you brought your torch and you like climbing, you can probably have a bit of fun getting up to the back of the cave. I didn’t, so I’m not sure how far it goes. Look out for the mounds of bat poo.

To make a full day you could pair this hike with the Vision Quest hike, which is just 4km further down the road.