Waterton Lakes National Park

This morning we woke up early and headed out to try to find some more animals. We had hoped to drive out along one of the Parkways, but they were still closed. We had no option but to drive out toward the park gate. It's quite a nice drive and we'd had seen the sheep and deer along with elk while driving along it the previous afternoon. Oddly enough, we didn't see any animals except for the deer in the township. That was until I spotted something on other side of lake. It was completely unexpected but it was a pack of either wolves or coyotes. Excitedly I thought they were a pack of wolves but, having studies the photos, I think they were a small family of coyotes. They were the best part of a kilometre away so it is a bit hard to tell.

Bison Paddock

After breakfast We returned to the Bison Paddock on the way to Red Rock Canyon and were lucky enough to see a couple of bulls up reasonably close. We couldn't drive inside the paddock because it was still closed but got close enough from the perimeter road to get a few photos.

Red Rock Canyon

We were hoping the parks people had opened the 2 parkways. To our relief, some were and we set out along the Red Rock Parkway. We didn't see any animals and the meadows were still buried under nearly a foot of snow. We reached the end of the road, Red Rock Canyon.

 

 

It was a bit hard to understand the name when it was buried under snow, but we got the idea. There's a short loop walk that runs alongside the canyon. Unfortunately the snow and overcast conditions took the edge off it. It was still interesting enough.

 

Just when we were about to cross the bridge over the canyon we spotted paw prints.

 

A grizzly bear had crossed the bridge a within hours of our presence. It had to have been sometime after the snow had stopped because there was no fresh snow in the prints. At a guess it was early that morning.

 

I'm told the way to tell a grizzly print from a black bear's is the claw marks. The Black bears claws retract. Check out the size comparison with Kerri's foot. I'm not sure that an encounter with this one would have been a good idea.

 

After the excitement with the bear tracks, we started to hike to Blackiston Falls on the other side of the valley in the shadow of Mt Anderson (above). The trail was deep in snow & we kept breaking through the top crust and ending up knee deep in white stuff. We ended up turning not even half way to the falls because it was way too dangerous. As it was Kerri nearly twisted her knee a couple of times.

Cameron Creek

 

So we hopped back in the car and headed along the Akamina Parkway beside Cameron Creek (above) hoping to end up a Cameron Lake. Unfortunately the road closed just before an avalanche zone about 2 kms short of the lake so we turned around and ended up back at township.

Bertha Falls

We were getting frustrated by this point and executed Plan C. It was a 2.8km hike to Bertha Falls (below). The trail was covered in a foot of snow, but not as bad as the one to Blackiston Falls. By the time we headed back, the trail was slushy and wet. Our shoes we soaked but it was just about worth it.

 

 

By the time we arrived back in town, most of the snow had melted off exposing the spring grass. It suddenly dawned on us why we'd seen so many animals down in the township. With the higher elevations still covered in snow and with few humans to hassle them, the grazers had a nice supply of fresh green grass to munch on. A mob of bighorns had set up camp right outside the visitor centre.

 Red Rock Canyon

Later in the afternoon we drove out along the Red Rock Parkway hoping to see animals again. It was amazing to see the foot of snow from the morning, completely gone! It became obvious where the canyon got its name.

Returning to town, just before we were about to give up on animal spotting we spotted a deer with it's white tail up in alarm.

 

On closer inspection we saw two coyotes eating a carcass.We followed one of them a little way along the tree line and beside a pond. Unfortunately we hadn't packed the tripod and the photos ended up a bit fuzzy.

 

It was fantastic to see these ultimate scavengers up close. The locals (particularly the farmers) hate them, but I happen to think they're great.

Waterton Lakes National Park

 

Waterton Lakes National Park sits in the south western corner of Alberta. It isn't one of the well known mountain parks further to the north and benefits from the lack of tourist buses. The park shares boundaries with Akamina-Kishina Provincial Park (British Columbia) and Glacier National Park in Montana (USA).

We booked a weekend in Waterton some months ago figuring that by May there would be some weather that resembled spring. I guess we underestimated the power of winter in these parts. It was the first time the weather didn't play nice for one of our North American holidays. It snowed most of last night and the roads were treacherous on the way down. The further south we traveled, the worse the conditions became. First it was rain, then sleet at one time and by the time we reached Pincher Creek, some 200 kms south of Calgary, it was snowing. The roads south of Pincher creek were awful. Unfortunately, I'd only changed out the winter tires for hard compound summers last Monday making the snow even more difficult to negotiate.
By the time we arrived in Waterton there was a foot of snow on the ground. We checked into the hotel and looked out to a bleak site. What had we done?

We drove around the town during the afternoon while it was bucketing down with snow. There were Mule deer everywhere. Interestingly they were only the mums with their fawns. The confused ground squirrels were popping their heads out of the snow wondering why spring had deserted them already. We stopped at Cameron Falls (below) which is just on the edge of the town.

After exploring the township, we ventured back along the access road into the township. At least it wasn't snowing so much anymore. There was a hillside just out of town where a mob of about 30 Big Horn Sheep were digging through the snow for grasses. A small heard of mule deer were mixed in as well.

 

It was awesome to be able to see them up close.

 

 

The animals didn't even seem to acknowledge that we were even there.

The snow stopped about 5pm so we took the opportunity to have a look around while we could see more than 10ft in front of us. As it turned out, the weather was calm after the snow storm which meant the Waterton Lakes were like a mirror. The mountains at the far end of the lake are in fact in Montana. Upper Waterton Lake (above) actually extends quite far into Montana. The mountains in the background are in fact in the USA. Also in picture is the Wateron township across the lake (to the right of the picture).

The Prince of Wales Hotel.

I think its location makes it more famous than anything. It's pretty hard to miss. The architecture is quite interesting as well. It's flagged as a 5 star hotel and judging by the nightly rates, you pay for the rating. Oddly enough, it's only open during summer.

There are two roads that lead into the main park, The Red Rock Parkway & the Akamina Parkway. Unfortunately both parkways were closed thanks to the snow so we headed just out of the park to the Bison Paddock. It's just a big fenced off paddock where they have a small heard of Bison. Unfortunately the animals were a long way off & the photos weren't great. Maybe we will more fortunate when we go back tomorrow.

Turner Valley Bird Watching

Recently, when Kerri's working on the weekend I drop her off at work and head 40kms south to Turner Valley then west along Sheep River. For what is predominantly a farming area, there is an incredible amount of wildlife.
There are always Mule Deer, sometimes Elk and Moose, the occasional skittish coyote and an amazing array of bird life.

I've seen an array of water birds including a number of different ducks that I've never seen before,
Canadian geese and Swans.

Many of the fence posts have little bird boxes that seem to attract swallows & Bluebirds.

You never go too far into the provincial parks without seeing woodpeckers either. I'd never seen a woodpecker before and quickly realized their pecking was incredibly noisy.

There are also many hawks and the occasional eagle. 

The Swainson's hawk above was quite happy to pose for the camera until it saw a snack and took off. The raptors are magnificent creatures and inspire awe when they're in flight.

San Diego.... Time to go...

 

As with our other adventures, the inevitable end came. On the final morning we went for a walk along the beach before leaving for the airport.

I can't speak highly enough about San Diego from a tourist perspective. We were there for a week and managed to do something completely different (and fun) each day. The food was outstanding, particularly the seafood, and the service across the board was excellent. The beaches are nice even if the water was a bit cold when we were there, and the weather was fantastic.

If you get a chance to go to San Diego, jump at it because it's a wonderful part of the world.

The sun goes down on yet another wonderful North American adventure. Hopefully we'll come back to San Diego soon.

Oceanside

After five days in San Diego, we had managedto do something completely different every day. We were a bit at odds to work out what to do on our last full day in San Diego. We'd already done all the big tourist things and had run out of ideas to some extent.

The only thing that really looked like a plan was to take the Coaster (above) to Oceanside. The trip takes around an hour each way and runs from downtown San Diego to the northern beach township of Oceanside.

 

It's quite a nice run along the coast stopping at Sorento Valley and a number of beach side communities along the way. The Pacific Surfliner follows the same route but continues on to Los Angeles and beyond. It would be a great way to see the California coastline.

We arrived at Oceanside after an hour traveling through some really nice scenery. Unfortunately it was a bit of an anti-climax. There just wasn't much there. The beach was nice, but there wasn't much else. We had planned to have lunch when we arrived, but the only options we could find were a very small Mackas (they say the smallest in the world??) and a place right out at the end of the pier called Ruby's.

 

Maybe there was something down at the other end of the beach but after a dodgy experience with the public "facilities" by Kerri, we decided to grab some Mackas and high tail it.
In hind sight we should have hopped off the train a stop earlier at Carlsbad where there seemed to be a quaint little beach side community that was much more established than Oceanside. Oh well, we weren't to know. The train trip was nice at least.