Near the end of October I drove up the Lac du Bois Road and parked at the northeast end of the lake.   I hiked the track along the north side of the lake.    There were some ducks on the lake, aspens were in fall colors, but otherwise it was very quiet.    The track leads into Hanging Valley, but at the northwest end of the lake, I followed a faint trail (which have hiked before) into an area on the west side of the hills overlooking Lac du Bois.    There are some game trails and cattle trails too, but the best access is a wider track going up a gully toward the top of the ridge.   There are a number of open viewpoints on top of a series of hilltops with views to the north and east.

From the highest viewpoint, we can see Lac du Bois below, the upper grasslands and Clapperton Ridge beyond. and the snowy peaks of the Tod Mountain area in the distance (see the slideshow for a telephoto shot).

From the hilltops to the Wheeler Mountain Road, there are no trails and a fence to get past.    I hiked to the old road then continued west to Wheeler Pond.    I went offroad to explore an abandoned homestead pasture, then returned onto the road down to the upper grasslands track, turning north past the pond and back to Lac du Bois, a 7 km route on trails, off-trail, and on old tracks.

There was lots of fall color, some wildlife, some windfall to get past, and a hunter stalking whitetails, but it is a route I would happily do again, but I have a variation on the route for the next exploratory outing.

Some photos with captions are provided here in a Google Photos album.    They are embedded as a slideshow into this post, but you can click the link to see the album which will include captions and more information.
 

• More Information – There are more posts on hiking this area on this website, on RambleOn, and on our YouTube Channel.