Saturday, August 27, 2011 (Crooked Creek Campground, Waterton Park, Alberta)

Clear blue sky greeted me this morning as I opened up the blinds...the sun was just breaking the horizon...so much sky!  It was going to be a beautiful day today. 

Steve had studied the park map and suggested that we go to Red Rock Canyon today...sounds good to me, so we headed out around 10:30.  It is a short drive back to the park entrance where we were asked by a young Parks Canada fellow to pull over.  He had a short survey about our boat and he politely asked if he could ask us a few questions.  I guess they are trying to prevent the spread of some kind of parasite in the lakes...so the questions were centred on what lakes we had had our boat in recently.  It only took a few minutes and he gave us a boat permit and we continued our way into the park.

A short distance into the park is Red Rock Parkway...a narrow, windy road that is badly in need of repaving.  It meanders over rolling prairie through the Blakiston Valley and best illustrates "Where the Mountains Meet the Prairies".  We stopped many times along the 15 km drive to the canyon, taking lots of pictures.

This a picture taken from a viewpoint looking back towards the main road, where we turned onto Red Rock Parkway...

This is me checking out the names of all the surrounding mountains...they had a pointer that you just turned to point at a mountain and it listed the name of the mountain...

At one place, there were cars pulled over on both sides of the road and everyone was staring towards the hillside...so we pulled over too.  Apparently a Grizzly bear had been spotted...but after a few minutes of scouring the hillside, we couldn’t find it so I guess it was gone.  Everyone had returned to their vehicles and continued on.

The Parkway follows the ancient Buffalo Trail used by First Nations hunting parties and has dramatic views of Mt. Blakiston, the Parks highest mountain at 9527 ft...beautiful with strikingly coloured red and green rocks...unfortunately, the pictures don’t show the colours that well...

We stopped at Lost Horse Creek....

After what seemed like a very long ride, we finally made it to the end of the road...and the Red Rock Canyon parking lot...also the trailhead for a number of hiking trails...one of which is 16.4 kms with a steep uphill grade and has several creeks that must be forded...hmmm...don’t think we’ll take that one! 

Instead, we did 2 shorter hikes...the first one, Red Rock Canyon Loop is a short walk along the colourful canyon....

The second hike was a little longer...to Blakiston Falls but still only 2 kms but had a slight upgrade making it seem longer.  It leads to great viewpoints of the falls....

 

We were back to a very full parking lot (obviously a popular spot!) and our truck about 65 minutes later.  We had enjoyed our hike...but we’re glad to get back into the air-conditioned truck...it was a hot day out there!

Now it was time for the drive back to the main road and into the town...we stopped for a couple more pictures...

After a slow drive along the twisty road, we were back at the main road and continued on into town.  We found a parking spot on a side road and headed off to find a place for some lunch.  It was almost 1:30 by this time and we were hungry.  The lady at our campground had recommended Trappers Mountain Grill and we found it without difficulty.  Along the way, there were some deer drawing quite a bit of attention as they grazed on the grounds of the RCMP building....

After a delicious lunch, we decided to go down to the marina and find Waterton Shoreline Cruise Company.  They offer a 2 1/4 hour scenic tour on the lake going down across the border into the States and back up.  We thought that would be kind of fun and I’m sure we’ll see lots of wildlife...so we reserved our boat ride for Monday morning at 10:00.

This is a picture of The Prince of Wales Hotel across from the marina...

On our way back to the truck, we came across the grocery store...sheesh...not much of a grocery store.  I’d say they are gearing down as we head towards the end of the summer season.  However, I managed to get the essentials.  Then it was onto the liquor store...they only have private liquor stores here in Alberta.  As we went to open the door, we noticed a note...”back in 10 minutes”...well, I guess if you are it in the area, you can do whatever you want.  When a fellow finally came to open the door (he was inside), he couldn’t because he didn’t have a key....next thing we know, he is telling us to come in through the back door.  Very interesting...we go in through someone’s private living quarters into the liquor store....which was not impressive in the least.  Again, with stock way down, it looked like they were also gearing down.  However, again, I managed to find a bottle of wine and Steve settled on Kokanee beer..no Sleemans Honeybrown.

Back at the campground, we relaxed outside for a bit before heading inside for dinner.  It was another usual evening...tomorrow we will be moving into the Townsite Campground right in Waterton Lakes National Park.