Prairie Creek and Powderface Creek Trail Loop

Posted March 14th, 2007 by Chris

Distance:

12.3 km

Difficulty:

Moderate

Elev. gain:

252 meters

Time required:

3 - 4 hours

Bikes permitted:

Yes

Dogs permitted:

Yes

Horses permitted:

Yes

Download GPX

Directions to trail head

This hike, along with Prairie Mountain starts at the Elbow Falls parking lot on highway 66 approximately 19 kilometres west of the intersection of highways 22 and 66. Walk back to the highway, turn left and walk past the winter gate. The Trailhead is on the north side of the highway next to Prairie Creek which you will see when you reach the end of the guard rail along highway #66. The other option is to continue approximately 500 meters further down the highway and park at the Powderface Creek Trailhead.

Hike Description

The route shown is three separate legs. The first 6 kilometres is the Prairie Creek Trail. The Prairie Creek Trail continues on through the valley but this route requires you to turn left at the intersection with the Prairie Link Trail. From the intersection, the Prairie Link trail is 3.2 kilometers to the Powderface Creek Trail. The Powderface Creek trail ends about 500 metres west of the starting point for the Prairie Creek Trail at the Powderface Creek Trailhead. The total distance is 12.3 kilometres. The total eleveation gain is 252 metres. While this sounds flat, there is a quite a bit of climbing up and down the side of the ridge above Prairie Creek.

The GPS track for this hike can be downloaded via the file attached to this post. Go to the "About" page for directions prior to download or use of this data. Please submit your feedback and let me know your thoughts on the hike. If you have the the GPS data for other hikes in Alberta please send it along with a couple pictures to chris[at]hikealberta[dot]com.