The Area

Location: Alberta, Canada Nestled on a mountain plateau at 1280 m (4200 ft.), Grande Cache is 214 km (130 mi.) northwest of Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. The Bighorn Highway 40 provides a paved corridor connecting Hinton, Alberta with Mile Zero of the Alaskan Highway at Dawson Creek, British Columbia. This is the shortest, most scenic route to Alaska from the United States.

Grande Cache is the gateway to Willmore Wilderness Park, Alberta’s greatest mountain treasure. Protecting the northern end of the Rockies, Willmore Wilderness Park is 4597 square kilometers of uninhabited, pristine mountain wilderness. Scenes of meadows overflowing with wildflowers, bubbling creeks, stunning mountain peaks and never-ending forests will hold you in awe. Our Alberta pack trips will take you along the same trails frequented by early Canadian explorers.

During the 1800's, traders with pack horses brimming with furs followed these same river valleys route from the Willmore area to trading posts at Jasper House. Grande Cache was the site of a large fur cache (storage area) for an Iroquois fur trapper, who worked for the Hudson Bay Company. His "grande cache" was left at this site sometime between 1818 and 1821. The indigenous Rocky Mountain people continued their traditional living in the surrounding mountains and river valleys. It was not until 1969 that the Town of Grande Cache was created. You will see historic sites and cabins along these trails that remain relatively unchanged.

This wilderness area is vast, and relatively unknown. You will spend hours, even days in the park, without encountering other parties of people. They too, will be either on horse-back, foot or mountain bikes as Willmore has restricted access to motorized vehicles.