Southern Alberta Flood - Trail Updates July 8, 2013

More rain to the Kananaskis region has definitely hampered repair efforts, but some progress is being made, especially on Highway 40, where the road is now open to Wedge Pond. Most recreational areas however are still shut.

While the Delta Kananaskis remains open, the surrounding area is mostly still closed -- Mt. Kidd RV park, the golf course, the Evan-Thomas bike path and the majority of hiking trails and camping areas are close. The north Terrace Trail around the village was open, but we didn't venture out. The hotel itself is very very quiet for July.

Here is the official closure map for Kananaskis, including roads and campgrounds.

Some other updates:

Bragg Creek Provincial Park is now open. (as of July 1). The West Bragg Creek Recreational Area is open, but the vehicle bridge is out. (as of July 3)

In the Bow Valley area, Yamnuska day use is open, while Heart Creek day use and Wind Valley day use are closed. (Note: You can see from the highway Heart Creek day use isn't even accessible due to a rock slide across the road). Quaite Valley backcountry campground is also closed. (as of July 1).

Further updates to Bow Valley include Bow River, Bow Valley, Lac Des Arcs and Willow Rock Campgrounds (open), Grouse, Owl, and Elk Flats group use areas (open), Three Sisters campground (closed), Porcupine group use (closed), Barrier Dam, Gap Lake, Grotto Mountain and Lac Des Arcs day use (closed), Bow Valley admin office (closed).

Southern Alberta Flood - Trail Update June 27, 2013

Unless you've been living under a rock (or perhaps outside of Canada), you'll know that the worst flooding in the recorded history of the region occurred on June 20-22, 2013. As a result, the mountains, recreational areas, roads, and rivers are a mess. Bridges are gone, campgrounds are flooded and trails are washed out.

In the grand scheme of things, personal property and major road repairs must take first priority. Getting cities, towns and hamlets safe and habitable again is key to rebuilding. Knowing this, it could take some time before attention is turned to the rehabilitation of our recreational areas.

So where can we go while we rebuild? With so many different regions, it can be tough to keep track of what's open to the public. Here's a quick reference for this moment in time:

Banff National Park updated their trail report on June 26, 2013.

In summary, Sulphur Mountain and Tunnel Mountain are pretty much your only in town options, with Bow River/Hoodoo listed as Fair/Poor. All other trails, such as Fenland, Goat Creek, etc, are closed.

Lake Minnewanka Loop Drive is closed.

The popular Johnston Canyon and Castle Lookout trails are closed, while other trails further up the highway are open but muddy.

Lake Louise and area escaped the worst of the flooding, but are still wet. In fact many trails still list snow as your greatest obstacle. Remember that during the heat wave next week.

In Kanananskis, one of the hardest hit areas, there are even less options. Road closures, bridge washouts, and mudslides are extensive. It might be helpful to look at the closed areas first.

Canmore Nordic Centre is open for use! (as of June 27). Some trails wet and muddy with natural hazards. Highway 742 (Spray Lakes) is closed at the Grassi Lakes turnoff.

Bow Valley Provincial Park (as of 2:15, June 27) (too many to list, click link for details -- news is cautiously optimistic)

Spray Valley Provincial Park is closed due to access and flooding.

Cataract Creek is closed due to access and flooding.

Elbow Valley - The highway is closed at either the Bragg Creek turnoff or MacLean Creek depending on which web site you visit. The bridge right before Allen Bill Pond was washed out, so MacLean Creek is the furthest you can go. This impacts the Elbow Falls rec area, as well as the Beaver Flats campground. Paddy's Flats Group use and River Cove Groups use are also closed. Little Elbow is closed. MacLean Creek campground is open, with limited services, no power, water, or sewage disposal. The store will be open, but on generator.

Peter Lougheed Park is completely closed. Click the link for the affected areas.

Sheep River. Bluerock is closed, Sandy McNabb is open.

Lower Kananaskis River. Many of the day use areas shut down. The slalom course was destroyed and washed out in the flood, creating a very messy situation in the area.

I did not see a trail report for Highwood area, but the footage online shows the damage to be quite extensive in the region.

I'll do my best to update as more information becomes available. Make sure to also follow on Twitter (@hiphiker).

Rae Glacier - September 18, 2011

Rae Glacier trail details: Take Highway 40 to the Elbow Lake Day Use Area. First 1.5 km or so of the trail is to the Elbow Lake campground. Go through the campground along the south side for the trail to Rae Glacier. Trail is about 3km with an incline of about 425m.. not for the faint of heart!

Usually Nat leaves the trail selection to me. I'm a bit of a trail geek, I like figuring out the places to go and find stuff we haven't seen. But when Nat picks, it's always something off my radar, and something so damn good!

 She outdid herself with Rae Glacier. After breaking myself in post-twins with a familiar and comfortable workout, I wanted something to push me. And I wanted something we hadn't seen before.

The first part of Rae Glacier is simply the trail to Elbow Lake. Even this was new to us!

 We crossed a rock glacier a few minute in. I've seen something similar along the highway near Highwood Pass and since we were so close, this wasn't terribly surprising, but still pretty cool to look at. Didn't see any picas though.

 Ah, beautiful trail, mountains ahead, perfect hike as far as I can see...

 Approaching the lake. The hike-in campground was pretty full, and it's really easy to see why.

But we were on our way to a glacier! Somewhere over there! But first, we had to go up. Way up. Love this terrain... always reminds me I'm somewhere so few people get to be.

I have to admit it... we nearly packed it in around here. We'd been hiking on rock and shale for a good 30 minutes, and the payoff didn't seem to be much. But the people passing us and going over that little hill.... yeah, we'd come too far to turn back now.

So we made it! We got to see what remained of the glacier... which has been receding for many years now. In all my excitement, I forgot to actually take a photo of said glacier. But that's ok. It's really worth seeing for yourself. But we do have a photo of our feet. On a glacier.

Nat did take a photo, you just have to ignore the goofy looking hiker in the middle of it...

Awesome hike Nat! Keep them coming!

Highway 40 -- February 22, 2009

Peter Lougheed Provincial Park is a cross-country skier's destination in winter, but us snowshoers can sneak in a trail or two as well. It's less than courteous to snowshoe in the tracks laid down for the skiers, so a few trails have been set aside for us mere snowshoers.

Sometimes even the closed and gated Highway 40 will do.

Highway is closed 6 months out of the year. While most other highways in the area re-open mid-May, we need to wait until June to access sites like Highwood Pass. When you see the amount of snow still there at the end of June you understand why the highway is closed half the year.

Looking back toward the closed highway:



Snowshoeing along the highway lets you take a good look at the scenery you zip past in the summer:



Turning onto a side road:







Amazing:



Heading back to the car:

Coalmine -- September 14, 2008

After the muscle strain that was Centennial Ridge, there was no way I was going on anything more than a gentle stroll this weekend. However, I did find myself drawn back to the same area.

I've mentioned before that I'm a bit of a coal mining history geek. I've had my eye on a trail in the Kananaskis area that leads to a reclaimed mining site, and it just happened to be a turn-off from the same trail as Centennial Ridge. Passing by it the week before just whetted my appetite, so David and I returned to the scene of last week's crime.

Plus I wanted David to see just how bad Centennial was.

How bad? Again, here's the hiking sign, this time with a "normal" hiking sign. The hiking guy that looks like he's stepping up an enormous hill is not exaggerating:



The history I have about this area is brief: Coal was discovered in the early 1900s, but lack of access roads made mining the area less than viable. By the late 40s, an access road had been built and strip mining began in earnest. After a year the operation went underground due a particularly thick seam in the mountain. The mine was in operation for 5 years before freight costs got too high and the demand for coal briquettes lessened.

This trail isn't particularly well marked, but I could tell we were getting close:



When the trail starting to go from dirt under our feet to this, we knew we had to be in the area:



Even the hills around us showed the sign of the "other" black gold:



However, once at the end of this brief hike, there's really nothing left to see, which is great on the reclamation side.... not so interesting on the history side:



I did notice some coal cars sitting near the trailhead for Ribbon Creek (on the other side of the parking lot), so there's still more to discover about this area....

Rock Glacier - August 24, 2008

Rock Glacier is not as hike as much as it is a chance to see some wildlife not normally spotted on your typical hike. Near the Highwood Pass area, the conditions and altitude around the Rock Glacier mean wildlife sees about 3 months of warm conditions, and spends those 3 months preparing for the other 9 months of winter.

The Rock Glacier is exactly what it sounds like -- a slow moving pile of rocks that gradually moves over time. More specifically, it is a scree slope that has water within and underneath. The constant freezing and thawing of the water creates the movement.

A rock glacier on its own really isn't much to look at -- however it's the perfect habitat for an alpine critter called the pika.

At first a pika looks like a squirrel or chipmunk, but it's actually related to rabbits and guinea pigs. They can be spotted by their rounded ears, if you can spot them at all! Their brownish-grey fur makes them tough to see in their chosen home of rock and boulder piles.

Even if you can't see them, odds are you'll know you're among pikas when you hear their "squeaks", which sound suspiciously like a squeeze toy. They use this squeak to communicate, and I swear, to throw off friendly neighborhood hikers hoping to catch a glimpse.

Pikas are busy creatures during summer months -- their favorite diet is dried grass, and they spend their days collecting fresh grass and laying it out in the sun to dry, before storing it away for the long winter. This makes the Rock Glacier a great place to sit back and spot a pika preparing for winter.

As we approached, we saw life right away, but it wasn't a pika. It was a Golden Mantle Ground Squirrel, hoping to cash on friendly humans:




It didn't take long for us to see our first pika. This guy didn't seem to care at all about the humans nearby and just carried out his chores. If you looked away at the wrong time, he'd be across the rock pile and lost to your eye in seconds flat.



Here's a shot of the outside of one of the "dens", complete with grass laid out to dry in the sun:



More pikas in the rocks. Looking at these photos after the fact was a little like playing "Where's Waldo?". Sometimes I didn't know if I'd lost the pika, or if the critter had run out of the frame before I took the shot...





Rock Glacier is not a hike or a walk, but if you're in the area driving around or hiking a nearby trail, it's absolutely worth the stop just to watch a little beast we rarely get to see.

Ptarmigan Cirque - August 24, 2008

Ptarmigan Cirque - Highwood Pass: Take Highway 40 south past the Kananaskis Lake turnoff to the Highwood Pass day use area. Trail head is the same as interpretive trail. Highwood 40 is closed at the Kananaskis Lakes junction from Dec 1 to June 15.

Ptarmigan Cirque is an amazing hike for so many reasons. On paper it doesn't look like much -- it's short (4.5 km total), the incline isn't much (225m), and the drive out to the Highwood Pass can take a good couple of hours from the city area. But everyone should do this hike at least once -- and preferably during wildflower season.

For starters the trailhead is beside the highest paved pass in Canada. This hike starts from an altitude of 2206m/7239 ft. And that 225m in altitude gain? That's pretty much all in the first kilometer. Suddenly, it's no walk in the park.

But the big draw of this hike is the terrain. You start from sub-alpine, and hike into true alpine terrain, the land of former glaciers and hardy vegetation. Even from the trailhead, one can tell that only the stronger trees, plants and critters survive. This particular area and altitude sees snow approximately 9 months out of the year (as evidenced by photos taken in late June).

The hike leads into what can only be described as a high plateau in the mountain, almost a bowl among the peaks, and is utterly unique.

The trailhead is shared with a short interpretive walk that is also worth the drive. The walk explains the climate and issues surrounding life in such an area:



The trail splits from the interpretive walk, crosses the highway and immediately begins the sharp ascent. It can a tough go -- especially if you're not used to high altitude -- but you're rewarded pretty quickly. This is looking across the highway, west:



I first encountered these flowers -- known as Chalice Flower or Western Anemone (Pulsatilla occidentalis) while hiking near the Icefields Parkway in Banff National Park. Their life is fascinating -- they exist mostly in alpine areas with short summer seasons. They bloom as small white flowers, and are covered in small hairs to protect them from the cold.

The bloom only lasts a short time -- maybe 2 weeks -- and then it is replaced by the "pod" seen here, known by many names such as "mops" "shaggy heads" "towhead babies" and my favorite "hippies on a stick". There were hundreds on this particular hike, and I picked this one because it looked, for the moment, almost entirely perfect:



After the climb, the trail meanders slowly toward the "bowl". As it transitions from sub-alpine to alpine, it almost seems like you're walking through a slowly rising meadow:



Looking south at the Highwood Range:



Nat and I are usually first on the trail, but this trail runner beat us to it. On the first photo I zoomed in on the man in red, but then I took a shot from a normal range, just to see the enormity of the area we were in (click on the second photo to see the man in red):





Though it was late in the season -- especially in a climate like this -- there were plenty of flowers along the trail. These Alpine Forget-Me-Nots (myosotis alpestris) were plentiful:



Another look down the Highwood Range from higher up the trail:



More wildflowers -- and a pretty one I just can't seem to identify. I'd like to call it a type of Cinquefoil, but it also resembles a buttercup. I'll keep looking. The distinctive star shape really caught my eye:



Even in late August, there were plenty of streams and falls throughout the meadow. I'm itching to hike this area come spring!



Another look at the "bowl". The trail makes it way through and over boulders and little creeks, but it's generally a flat meadow. The trail follows a "U" shape to the back of the plateau and around the other side to the front. All of this was carved out by glaciers:



Looking west:



Nice shot of the "bowl" from a spot near the end of the "U":



Pretty sure this is Slender Beardtongue (penstemon procerus). Stunning colours:



Sometimes those short hikes turn out to have the most interesting sights.

Barrier Lake Lookout - August 17, 2008

Barrier Lake Lookout - Kananaskis: Take Highway 40 to Barrier Dam Day Use Area. Park in lot, and hike across dam to Stoney Trail/Prairie View Trail Junction. Take Prairie View trail.

I've long said Barrier Lake is one of my favorite places in the world, but amazingly, I'd never hiked much in the area. With all the amazing lookout hikes Nat and I had tried in the previous few weeks, this short hike (7.8 km total) was a no-brainer for David and I.

Every hike in this area starts out with a 1.1 km trek across the Barrier Lake Dam. It can be long and sometimes tiring, but the view is stunning.... and that water colour!



Only a half hour or so up the trail there are opportunities for great views:



The colours of the lake never cease to stun me:



The name if the trail leading to the lookout is actually called Prairie View Trail. Here you can see why. I'm always partial to the mountain shots, but looking out over the prairie from the height of the Rockies is a reminder of how varied the area is:

Highwood Pass -- June 29, 2008

Our last stop along Highway 40 on this day was at Highwood Pass -- the highest paved road pass in Canada (2227 m/7310 ft). Anything living up here exists under very harsh conditions where there is snow on the ground up to 9 months of the year, and temperatures hover around freezing for a good percentage of that 9 months.

Even in late June, with a few weeks of sunny conditions, there were still patches of snow throughout the area:



Highwood Pass is pretty close to the treeline, and there was plenty of snow high the mountains around us as well:



As we drove away from Highwood Pass, we passed by a historical landmark sign documenting the story of the Lost Lemon Mine, a local historical legend. The sign reads:

According to legend these mountains harbour a motherlode of gold. Is it still out there? Or, was it ever?

In the spring of 1870, two miners, Blackjack and Lemon, passed through the foothills on their way from the North Saskatchewan River to Montana. It is said they stumbled across a rich vein of gold. Overcome by greed, Lemon murdered Blackjack -- an act which was to haunt him for the rest of his life.

The Stoney Indians are said to have placed a curse on the gold in an attempt to keep the white man out of their hunting ground. A number of mysterious events occurred around that time including an unexplainable cabin fire, sudden deaths, and even a rumour of skeleton being found clutching a bag of gold.

Does the gold really exist? Some believe so. But others claim it was a hoax started by a false priest; that the gold was on the other side of the continental divide; or that it had been hijacked from miners who were returning from the goldfield of British Columbia.

We may never know the truth about the Lost Lemon Mine. But if the legend is all that ever comes from the mine, it has greatly enriched the folklore of Western Canada.

I'd always thought the legend was more focused on an area in a more southern part of Alberta. In any case, this was an odd place for such a sign, but still gave me chills, knowing some of the history I read and write so much about may have taken place where I stood.

The full story (legend) is fascinating. I'll write about it in a future post.

June 29, 2008 -- The Wedge

Wedge Pond -- June 29, 2008

Kananaskis Valley - Wedge Pond. Trail details: Take Highway 40 past Kananaskis Village. Look for Wedge Day Use parking lot on left side of road.

We'd never heard of Wedge Pond before this day. It's not even really much of a hike, but more of a 1 km loop around a small pond. It was busy, and there was a lot of activity, but you know what? I'd go back there on a warm summer day in a heartbeat, just for the view:



And we continued along Highway 40...