Off-Roading in the Ghost

Sometimes driving in the Ghost is easy, and sometimes you spend all day winching yourself out of snow drifts. In early December, Kyle and I made an attempt to drive out to This House of Sky for a day of ice climbing. We left before dawn and drove out to Waiparous. It was icy and slow going. By  the time we hit the turn off, we had a feeling it might be a slow drive into the North Ghost.

Driving out to the Ghost

Surprisingly, the trans-alta road was pretty good until we hit the big hill, which was pretty snowy for this time of year. Our first obstacle was the steep hill up onto the road. Kyle gunned it but we didn't quite make it and slid sideways down into the deep snow. Time to get the winch going!

First obstacle of the day

Winching off a tiny tree up to the road

Back on dirt

  Usually the creek crossings pose the biggest challenge when driving in the North Ghost, but Kyle drove through with ease.

Scoping out the creek

Kyle's truck goes for a swim

No worries!

 We followed a jeep track for a few kilometres, stopping every so often to winch ourselves through a snowdrift. Finally we caught up with the other vehicles. They had started driving almost 2 hours before us and were getting pretty tired of digging themselves out. We went for a pass and got stuck immediately. Good thing we had just made some friends!

New friends

 We drove on ahead and broke trail. The other guys called it quits and started heading home.

Blasting through another drift

 With no tracks to follow, we got stuck frequently. The winch was getting a good workout. Luckily the weather was good and it wasn't very cold. The day had turned into an off-roading adventure instead of an ice-climbing day but we were having a good time nonetheless.

Winching up a hill

Plowing through drifts 

We turned around at the 40km marker. We hadn't even made it to GBU and it was already almost noon. We briefly discussed walking into the Valley of the Birds to do some climbing, but with the short days and knowing that nobody else was out in the North Ghost that day, we decided it would be a good idea to head home. We ended up having to winch a few more times on the way out and it was slow going, but a very entertaining day out!

Time to turn around

No ice-climbing Ghost adventures

Fun times out with this guy and his truckasaurus