#2: [04-Sep-06]

11-Jan-2002 -- When I explained the Degree Confluence Project to some friends in Grande Prairie, AB they became quite keen to help find an unvisited confluence nearby.

Our excursion took us south of Grande Prairie, up the Bald Mountain Forestry Road. After 15 Km we were passing through the rural community of Grovdale where we could see that the area was booming with oil and natural gas resource development. The were numerous signs along the road pointing to drilling rigs and a gas pipeline was under construction. The Grovdale area also has large and small farms concerned primarily with livestock. Most fields were large and flat and there was evidence that they had been cleared from the forest recently.

About 10 Km west of Grovdale the GPS guided us south along a newly cleared pipeline right-of-way and after following it for about 3 Km we were only 380 m from our goal. From that point we walked northeast through a mature aspen forest for about 100 m (easy walking, with about 25 cm of snow). Then the forest changed to frozen muskeg with short black spruce and thick willows. This part of the walk was a little challenging, but by 11:15 AM we were at our goal!The elevation at 55 00 000N 119 00 000W appeared to be 660 m.