Elbow Falls and Beaver Flats -- May 10, 2008

Elbow Falls Day Use Area: From Bragg Creek, take Highway 22 south to the t-intersection. Turn right onto Highway 66. Follow Highway 66 for about 20-25 kms, or until you see the winter gates for Highway 66. Entrance to parking lot is on the south side of the highway, right before the gates.

Beaver Flats Interpretive Walk: Just beyond Elbow Falls along Highway 66. There is a small parking lot on the south side of the highway.

Finally got a chance to get out a little this weekend. The snow is still pretty plentiful in the mountains, but the weather is nice and the snow is slushy and thick. It'll be gone soon. A lot of the highways actually open up today, and the upcoming weekend is a long weekend in Canada. Around here it's the first big camping/hiking/riding weekend of the spring, so it's usually complete chaos in the mountains. Hopefully this year won't be a repeat of last year, when campgrounds were trashed and sensitive wetlands areas destroyed.

Here's a link to a story about what the Alberta government is doing to prepare for this weekend:

Thanks to the irresponsible antics of a few, spring's first great escape will be a weekend long on rules and regulation

Anyway, that's off-topic and hopefully won't need to be brought up again. ;-)

D and drove out to Elbow Falls, mostly for the drive, but also to see what the conditions of the trails were after yet more snow in the foothills. I also had a digital camera I was testing for my real-world job (I'll post a review here once I've reviewed it for the paper -- seems only fair).

To my surprise, Elbow Falls was fairly quiet -- the overcast skies and recent snow were keeping people away, which is too bad, because it was a beautiful day to be outside.



Strategically placed swamps and puddles prevented me from getting any straight on shots of the falls, plus the falls were much weaker than they usually are for spring. I imagine once the real run off begins, that will change:



The Elbow Falls Loop is a short interpretive walk at best. The path is mostly staircases built into the rock, and circles beside the falls area.



Come summer, it will be next to impossible to take a photo without someone in it. Upstream there are fire pits and picnic tables, and it's a very popular spot to spend a day. Which why I rarely see this area during summer.

D and I left the parking lot, walked up to the highway and ducked through the gates. We walked down the highway for about 5 minutes until we hit Beaver Flats, another short interpretive walk N and I did last spring, but D had never seen. (Can you tell we weren't into hiking?).

N and I walked Beaver Flats in April of last year. It's unbelievable to look at the photos, because there was considerably more snow there last weekend and we're already into the middle of May:



One thing I love about hiking while there's still lots of snow near the water is how crystal clear the water is. The trail, the roads, the areas around the water are muddy swamps, but the water looks like this:



Beaver Flats is a short walk along an area essentially created by industrious beavers building dam after dam. What remains here is the result of their work: large pools of water, felled trees, and many many dams. Unfortunately, the snow covered most of the sites, but this dam showed through just a little bit:



All in all, a beautiful walk...

Lazy hiking weekend

Elbow Valley - Beaver Flats - The Particulars: Trailhead is located within the Beaver Flats campground. Drive west on Highway 66 until just past Elbow Falls and the highway gate. Turn left into the campground; the traillhead is on the East side of the campground. Alternately, there is a small turnout lot just off the highway. Look for the Beaver Lodge sign.

Despite our best efforts, we didn't make it out for a Saturday hike. Too many late nights and playoff hockey led to some serious sleeping in on Saturday. But since D had a brand spanking new Rav 4 to try out, we did make it out to Banff to resample the Mexican food. Yummy! We'd planned to walk around - at least make it out to Bow Falls and take the foot path back into town... but that Mexican food was way too filling. We hit the bookstore and left. Yes, lazy. ;-)

It was packed in Banff -- I'm sure it will only get worse as spring gets warmer. Even this late, we were only able to grab one of the last parking spots near the park in downtown Banff. Even from a parking lot, there are incredible views in Banff. This is right beside the parking lot, looking West, just before sunset.

So Sunday was the only hiking day, and I think it was pretty clear both N and I were tired of Fullerton Loop and Diamond T. As in really tired. Highway 66 is closed at the Elbow Falls area until May 15 (that's 19 days from now for anyone who is counting), but there's still plenty to do. This week N and I thought we'd explore.

I know there's some options just beyond the gate. Prairie Mountain Trail is one. Sadly, I think it's a little beyond us at this point. 3 km and over 500 ft ascent in that time. Oh hell no. Not yet. Prairie Creek Trail is a lot more our speed, but it's only one way, and.... well I have no good reason for not picking that one. It was just wasn't right for the day.

We parked at the gate and started up the highway, taking the left shoulder. After only a few minutes there was a small parking lot and a sign that pointed down to the "Beaver Lodge". I'd known there was a quick interpretive walk around the area, but I hadn't been prepared enough to figure out it was there.

Beaver Flats Interpretive is the official name, though I've seen it called Beaver Lodge as well. We actually started on the "wrong" side... the trailhead sits in the campground a couple of kilometers up the road. It doesn't really seem to matter though, and in the busier parts of summer, it's probably best to park in the little lot off the road than try to find space in the campground.

It's a short walk, no real exertion and very cool. We didn't see many signs of life, but the evidence of beavers there is everywhere. If nothing else, it's very quiet and very pretty.

We returned back to the highway via the campground road and continued uphill. We could have walked along Elbow trail I suppose.... maybe next time. We made it past the viewpoint (and paused to read a touching makeshift memorial to a cycler who had died in the area), and beyond. Since the highway just keeps on going, so did we. After about an hour of mostly uphill, we turned around (we really didn't make it that far). It was fun, and now we know what is reachable beyond the gates..... lots! 19 days til the gates open, I think we'll have plenty to fill the time.

And Maclean Creek opens in 4 days! Even better.