Trip to Southern Alberta 2008 – the final leg

Today I’m going to finish off this entry…just as we were heading home in a relatively quick fashion, I’ll end this the same way…

We left Alberta, entering B.C. via the Crowsnest Pass, skirting the city of Cranbrook and spending the next night in a delightful little provincial campground, located right beside the highway in the town of Yahk.

this was one of the lovely sites which backed right onto a little river…

Shantz was quite delighted to have the water to play in as the weather had turned warm again once we’d got back to our side of the Rockies.

This squirrel was very busy in the campsite the whole time as well….

Next morning we were up and on the road again.  Anyone who has driven across B.C. via highway 3 (The Crows Nest Highway) knows it is like driving a roller coaster….up one side of a mountain range and down the other, then up again and so on.  The steepest ‘up’ you encounter is going over the Salmo – Creston summit.  Fortunately, there is a lovely rest area situated at the summit to allow for frayed nerves to calm and engines to cool….

this little lake lies between the two main sections of the rest area and there is a lovely trail that winds along the back side….a great place to give the dogs a bit of a walk…

Up here the fall colours were much in evidence, these tall stems are what remains of the flower heads on this unique plant known as ‘Bear Grass’.  I’ve only ever seen Bear Grass in flower once, and that was in Waterton National Park, the year we accidently discovered the Wildflower Festival.

There was an array of native berries….including these Wild Currants…

this Mountain Ash sported not only edible berries for the birds, but some bright red fall colour.

Next destination was Kettle River Provincial Park, located just outside of Rock Creek.  This is another park that we enjoy as it is a birder’s virtual paradise, especially in the spring.  The varied habitat located in the park itself attracts a wide range of bird life.

This trip we didn’t have a lot of time for birding but couldn’t resist a picture of these Oregon Grape berries, with just a hint of fall…

Chipmunks were busy here.  I did see some White – breasted Nuthatch (only the second time I’d seen them) but couldn’t manage a decent picture.

Back on the road, we headed north to Kelowna via the east side of the Okanagan, then up the Coquilla Connector to Kentucky Allyene Provincial Park.

When we first started traveling, back with our original truck and camper, Kentucky Allyene was our favourite place to come.  There are actually two campsites here.  One sits on Kentucky Lake and is only open for part of the year, the other sits on either side of the road that actually bisects the park and is therefore open year round, although without any amenities, such as running water, during the off season.

When we first started coming to this park, you could actually camp on that grass covered hill in the distance…there was one site on the hill and another few located at the bottom of the road I am standing on to take this picture.  They were isolated from the rest of the campsite that is located at the other end of the lake and we have many wonderful memories from our stays here.  This park used to be run by Douglas Lake Cattle Country, whose lands abut the park….but when the running of it changed hands, the access to this end of the park was gated off.  A ‘group’ campsite was created at the end of the road and the hillside was completely blocked off and reclaimed…as an environmentalist I should applaud these measures, but I do miss being able to camp in this isolated spot…..

This isn’t actually the lake itself, but a small lagoon which is what those original campsites sat on…you could access Allyene Lake by a very narrow channel….just wide enough for a canoe…

here we see the lagoon and in the distance, the end of Allyene Lake…..and I think with that, I will bring this entry to a close.

Our next trip isn’t planned for a few months yet and our destination, as yet, unclear…possibly eastern Canada…..but I will continue to make postings.  I have approximately 20,000 pictures in my computer that I am working through, editing, tagging etc. so you’ll never know what might show up. 

Trip to Southern Alberta 2008 – heading home

With only two weeks time off, it was now time to head towards home.  We hooked up the trailer and headed to the sani-station which was located up on the plains.

While Ernie dealt with that nasty business….I snapped a few final shots of Writing on Stone….there are those Sweet Grass hills…

and a look back towards the south west….

and eastward, with the visitor’s center (closed now for the season although the park is open year round), that flat building up on the hillside and the campsite down in the trees in the middle.

As we headed back to where the park road intercepts highway 501 we found this small herd of Pronghorn Antelope

These Antelope abound in this general area, although this trip, these were the only ones we saw.  I’m always amazed to see them…they just don’t seem like the sort of animal you expect to find in Canada!

A bit further along managed a few pictures of this…

 Swainson’s Hawk.  There are a lot of raptors in this area as well, although more so in the spring and summer than at this time of year.

We needed to fill the fuel tank, so stopped in the little town of Milk River and decided to stop at the visitors center there to get some pictures of this life size Dinosaur…

this was quite a remarkable visitor’s center…the building itself is under that blue roof…

this angle shows part of the large parking lot and the general area..

back on the road, I made Ernie stop so I could get a picture of this Prairie Coneflower which grew all along the shoulder of the highway….a wildflower that was completely new to me.

These White Asters were also flowering in some places….I haven’t been able to identify them specifically.

We had a fairly long run this day as our destination was Beauvais Provincial Park, which is located a bit west of the town of Pincher Creek.  This would be our second visit to this park, we had been quite enchanted with it when we had last visited it in June of about 2006 or 07.

the sun was getting low in the afternoon sky when we finally passed through Pincher Creek, on our way to the campground.  Pincher Creek is the wind turbine capital of Alberta as these stormy pictures, taken along our route, prove.

Had just pulled in and set up camp….

when a Conservation officer stopped to advise us that a Black Bear had just been in the campsite behind us. One of the many things we love about Alberta parks is the strong presence of Conservation officers in all their parks.  Unfortunately, in B.C., seeing a conservation officer is a rare occurrence….not so in Alberta.

Knowing a bear was in the area made us a bit more cautious as we went for our evening walk…there are a lot of lovely walking and hiking trails in this park.

this wide meadow area lies between the campground and the lake itself….

although the east side of the lake is quite populated with houses, there is a nice trail all along the west side of the lake.  We weren’t able to take advantage of that trail this brief visit…

and here is a look from back at the edge of the campground. 

Tomorrow, we’ll be back in B.C.

Trip to Southern Alberta 2008 – Writing on Stone 2

September 2nd we finally woke to sunshine…which gave us a chance to enjoy this park in all it’s glory….

First thing we did was go up to the wonderful visitor’s center that sits up on the grasslands, above the campground.  The green trees in this picture are the campground…you can just make out one of the roads, and the beach area….and those hills in the distance are the Sweet Grass Hills in northern Montana….and you can see that the cold, wet weather system that had brought all that rain, had delivered snow to the Sweet Grass Hills….remember it was only the 2nd day of September! 

back down to the campground, this is the beach that you could see from up above.  There were a few Sunflowers still in flower…

 

Here is a closer look at these Prairie Sunflowers…

time now to repeat the walk we took yesterday, but this time in brilliant sunshine…. looking westward along the Milk River….

and now south east…

from up top looking southward…

one of the ‘rock gardens’ although not much left in flower at this time of the year.  Temperatures along this rock face, in summer time are often in the high 30’s and 40’s….so vegetation has to be tough…

the various holes in the sandstone are used by lots of creatures….in this case…a pretty good sized Wasp nest.  Raptors build their nests in these holes as well…

Here is another spectacular view…this time with that tough prairie wildflower – Liatris in the foreground.

Speaking of Liatris and how tough it is…..

 

Here is another view from high up in the hoodoos, looking along the river.

back down at river level, you can see we are in grass and sage type vegetation…..

another, slightly different look – the landscape is so breath taking….

I think this is my favourite picture….taken along the trail

well these hoodoos are found on the trails that lead from the campground, up to the visitors center…

I should mention that although I haven’t posted any bird pictures, it wasn’t because there weren’t birds…there were lots of choke cherry trees and other berried trees that were absolutely alive with Robins and Cedar Waxwings….we also found a fairly young Gray Catbird living just back of one of the sets of garbage containers…and of course the deer were everywhere.

Trip to Southern Alberta 2008 – Writing on Stone

On the 31st day of August, 2008 we woke to this….

and decided it was time to move on!  Here we were in the very south western corner of Alberta and our next stop would be another of our very favourite place, Writing on Stone Provincial Park, about 3/4’s of the way to the Alberta/Saskatchewan border.

We first headed out highway 5 to Cardston where we stopped for some groceries, then headed, first south, and then east on highway 501.  We had taken this route before on our previous trip, which had been in mid-June and had found that not only was the highway virtually deserted, but that there were all kinds of birds and wildlife along it so we were stopping constantly to take pictures…not so this trip….it poured the entire route and I didn’t take a single picture! 

Writing on Stone is located in one of the most arid areas of Alberta – we’ve been there twice – and each time it has been raining when we arrived!  I don’t know what that says about us!!!  The campsite was pretty much deserted when we got there so we were able to get one of the powered sites.

The next day, the weather wasn’t much better, but we went for a walk around the campsite….this is looking at the Milk River ….

and this is one of the campsites which is located where it backs onto the river.  This is a park that is absolutely alive with birds and wildlife….including rattlesnakes….

this view is from the plains above, the campground is situated down in the gully where the trees are….because it was still such a dull wet day, we decided to go for a bit of a drive….

headed east on #501 and then turned north on #879…..this gives a pretty good indication of the type of country we were traveling through – pretty flat….by the way, those were Yellow headed Blackbirds sitting on the fence.

we had also spotted some Gray Partridge in this harvested wheat field…

a ‘lifer’ as I’d never seen this species before…

this soaking wet coyote pretty much rounded out the subject matter.

Back to the campground where it was still raining…but the rock formations and hoodoos are the main reason for coming to this park.  There is a wonderful hiking path from the campground….so we bundled up and set out.  At least I wasn’t worried about rattlesnakes this time!

and here is just a sampling of the wonderful rock formations…

when we were here in the spring, there were Rock Wrens nesting in holes in these sand stone formations…

the only birds visible this day were this pair of soaking wet Rock Doves….

This is from one of the higher vantage points….you can just make out the Milk River down there in the right hand corner…

sort of a surreal landscape in the rain.

That Liatris was in flower here too – in fact, in the spring, the wildflowers here are equally spectacular to the amount of birdlife.

a few touches showing that fall was right around the corner….

here is a view along the rock face, looking westwards along the Milk River…you can see the rain drops on the lens of the camera – no wonder I manage to kill off so many cameras!

Back up on top, looking down into the canyon..

Shantz loves all these wonderful rock formations….here she is posing very nicely on top of one – and don’t worry….she is on a leash…

back in the campground….you’ll notice the deer to the left of the picture….this campground abounds in deer and cottontail rabbits…..

tomorrow we’ll awake to better weather….