North Sask - Rocky to Drayton

This section of the river is fairly easy and beautiful. The river looks like you are in the middle of nowhere for most of the trip. However, there is oil and gas work all along the river for almost the whole trip, and you will usually hear the constant hum of wells or rumble of nearby trucks. There are also many ATV trails near the river for much of it, especially as you get closer to Drayton Valley. Most of this doesn't affect the paddling, which is great the whole way, but it does affect camping. Finding good camping spots is difficult. There are no developed spots I know of, and most spots you find will be near some sort of noise. I haven't marked any camping spots on the map - my advice would be to find some promising spots on satellite view (islands and more remote banks on the inside of corners) and then check them out as you're paddling.

The paddling itself is easy for the most part. The trickiest section is right after the the powerline early in the trip. As soon as you go under the powerline, the river starts to be more braided and there are often trees in the river. I have heard of canoes getting wrapped around the trees, so you have to be really careful here. Other than that, there are rapids here and there, but most are either easy class 1, or easily avoided.

This section is best paddled between 80 and 300 cms at the Rocky Mountain House monitoring station. You can check the current flow rate at https://rivers.alberta.ca/

This trip can be extended by started earlier at Nordegg, or continuing on to Edmonton.