Having climbed every weekend since July 1st, I was looking forward to a weekend off at home. However, that plan was dashed when Chris told me he wanted to go backpacking on the first weekend of August. Having had this loop in mind for a while, I suggested we explore it. Boy was I happy we decided to do it.
The South Ram River area is actually pretty unknown. Sort of like Nordegg, it's been largely forgotten by most people except for some fly fishermen, a horseback outfitter and sheep hunters who show up to do their thing. I've never seen someone backpacking in the area, let alone any climbers. That's what sort of made it attractive to me. Yes, the trail is not really intended for hiking (it crosses the river many times) but I still thought it would be cool to backpack and maybe get a glimpse of some of the upper Ram River peaks.
We drove down early on Saturday morning and parked at the Hummingbird Creek Staging area parking lot. There is loads of roadside camping in there, my family has gone there every fall and spring for years. Just find an empty clearing and set up your camp. No one will ever bother you, and the local SRD Officers are super cool. Right off the bat you cross Hummingbird Creek and so we started the hike with our boots on our backs and sandals on the feet. After gingerly crossing the creek (it's cold) we slogged up the muddy first bit to the falls. Even if you don't want to do a whole lot of hiking, you should really check these out. The falls are really picturesque and I can see some rock and ice climbing potential there.
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| The lower half of the falls. |
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| The upper falls. Rock quality is surprisingly good on the left side... |
After the falls the trail flattens out pretty much, and the scenery keeps getting better. After twice crossing the Ram, we finally hit Sickman's Camp which has an astounding view, and then dropped down onto the valley flats.
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| Descending from Sickman's Camp to the valley flats. Travel is super easy due to lack of tree cover. |
We sort of lost the trail at this point but that wasn't really an issue, because we were walking on what looked like an airstrip! Not a tree in sight and we could see for miles. Making a beeline for a clear-cut survey line, we found the trail again. We kept going down the clear-cut, past an old outfitter's camp and across several small creeks to a nice camp just shy of the trail's intersection with the Pleasant Valley trail. We took a quick hike up the the grassy ridge above and had stellar views of the surrounding peaks.
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| Whelk Peak (?) from the grassy ridge. |
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| Mars is right behind the ridge, fear of martians is probably why nobody comes here. |
The next morning we woke up to slightly unstable weather and dead batteries on my camera! So alas there are no more photos of mine. The hike up over the pass and down Canary creek is just as picturesque and the trail quality is much better. You end up having just one creek crossing on your second day, right at the end which means you can just run through in your boots. After that it's just a short walk back down the road to your car. This is a great backpack and it deserves more attention that it sees. If you're looking for something off the beaten path you should check this out. More specific access info and directions below.
Trailpeak - South Ram River
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