My buddy Ben and I decided to ride up to Limestone Mountain as part of our prep for our 1000km Crowsnest Pass in August. An early start with some water and snacks loaded up, some A&W and we were off. Heading north on crowchild trail we connect with HWY 1A west to Cochran, AB. Just west of Cochran is HWY 734 which heads North through waiparous. A quick break and we are on our way... and we cross Waiparous Creek HWY 734 shortly turns to soft pack gravel which is rather "exciting" as you slide all over the place... Luckily the gravel further on became hard pack with almost no one on the road. We were able to pick up our speed averaging 80-100km/h. We take a short break at the 579 junction A short while later we make it to Mountain Aire Lodge. This is the only place to get gas. We decide that we have enough to get to the Limestone so we pass up the gas until the ride back.
riding on we cross the Red Deer River and make our way NW towards Limestone Mountain. we take a snack break to check our bearings After stoping at numerous intersection we made our way to the final road up the mountain. The road turned rough with large sized loose rock littered all over the road. Sadly we took no pics until here: Looking east: And to the West:
You can see in the right corner of the picture the lookout tower. We did not make it to the very top as we were running low on time.... while Ben took a break I rode a little further to get a better look of the final ascent that we would not ride that day. A quick lunch and we packed up to head back home. While packing up I noticed a high pitch sound, following the noise led us to this: Some sort of large rodent the size of a cat. It eventually ran off as did we back down the mountain headed for gas at Mountain Aire Lodge. Since my bike was jetted way too rich I ran out of gas a few kms befor Mtn Aire Lodge. So we took a break before tipping my bike over to get the last bit of gas from the low side. A quick fill up and were off on our way home to Calgary. We arrived back in Calgary in time for Dinner with only few casulties... a lost signal light and a molested license plate
