Week ending June 16, 2016 Olds to Dorothy to Vulcan to Banff

Friday morning, we left Olds.  We had seen 4 places to camp free in the Drumheller area, so we headed out to check them out (with the trailer behind us).  The first stop was Horsethief Canyon Viewpoint. 

 Meadowlark leaving a fence post

Whoever said there was camping there must have been in a truck camper, or tent, because a sizable trailer would block most of the parking.   We actually walked the 1km access road to check it out, as it didn't look like a large parking lot from the secondary road, and we are always concerned about not having room to turn the trailer around.  With this policy, we have only had to back the trailer out of tight spot once or twice.  While we were getting ready to walk out a Starland County truck came in to collect the garbage.  We chatted with the operator for a few minutes, and she had never seen anyone actually using the viewpoint to camp, but she could check with the office.  We told her not to bother, as there really wasn't room for us anyway.  

We carried on to Dorothy, where there is supposed to a free municipal campground.   This turned out to be a rest area.  We might have been able to pull a trailer in and back it in, but we figured it wasn't worthwhile.  However, Cottonwood Corners Campground,  half a kilometer from Dorothy, had power and electric for $25 a night. It  was empty except for what we assumed was the campground host's.  There was no one at the trailer.  Washrooms were okay, but need a thorough cleaning, and painting.   Once we got set up we walked back to Dorothy to check out  the 'ghost town' buildings.   A tree swallow kindly posed for us. 

Tree Swallow

There were two original residences and two churches.  The United Church had been bought for $50 around 1932, and moved from Finnegan, which is downstream where we crossed the Red Deer on the ferry a couple of years ago.

Dorothy United Church

Back at the campground, one other van drove through the campground in the evening, but decided not to stay, so we still had the campground to ourselves.  

It rained quite a bit Friday night.  When we got up on Saturday, there was still no host on site.   We went to the check out the Orkney Viewpoint, across the river from the Horsethief Viewpoint.  Same situation here for free camping, but even smaller. 

Orkney Hills Viewpoint Parking

Red Deer River from Orkney Hills Viewpoint

It was overcast for most of the day, so it was a good thing we weren't depending on solar for power.  We checked out a few campgrounds in the area for future reference.  On the way back to the trailer, we drove up the Rosebud River, across 11 bridges to the old mining town of Wayne.  All the bridges are one lane, so you have to stop if someone is approaching on the bridge. 

11 Bridges

Wayne has a small campground that might work on solar.   This weekend it had been booked out by a group in for a wedding.  There were a bunch of sports cars and at least one truck parked in Wayne, sporting Royal Rally insignia.     As we drove back to the trailer, several of them went roaring past us.   See the link for this event at http://www.comeroadrallywith.us/event/ab-royal-rally-badlands/

On Sunday, we woke up early.  The hosts' truck was at there trailer.   We got all packed up.  After stopping in Strathmore for diesel and Tims, which was conveniently at the Shell station, we carried on to Vulcan.   Virginia Mitchell Campground was full, so we headed to the campground behind the PetroCan.  We found out that it is Spock Days this weekend, and we arrived before people cleared out.   There were a few spaces in the campground, so we got all set up in time for the Nascar race at 11:00.

One of the interesting policies here was a credit card required so they could charge people for cleaning up the site after they left, particularly in the firepits. This prompted Joan to take a picture of the firepit, which had considerable garbage in it.   She took the picture in to show the owner the problem so we don't get charged because they couldn't be bothered to clean out garbage from a previous camper.  People are incredible.  It isn't like they don't have handy garbage bins.

Late Monday morning, we went to Stavely for a round of golf.

On Tuesday, John fixed the catch on the tailgate.  The hook that connects the catch to the pull had come out.  We did a short walk around Vulcan, including our favourite exercise machine circuit.

Wednesday morning, we got up early and walked over to the A&W at the PetroCan to have breakfast before packing up and heading for Banff.  There was a fairly strong SW wind, which we felt most of the way to Banff .  We ran into some construction west of Calgary on Highway 1.  They were repaving the section from Jumping Pound Creek to Scott Lake Hill, and we were down to one lane for a stretch, which almost brought traffic to a standstill.  It took us about an extra half hour to get through that area.  We were surprised we hadn't heard anything about this on Calgary traffic news, since we could have taken 1A instead.   However, we got to Tunnel Mountain in good time to get set up.  The attendants brought our attention to a wolf warning.  A wolf that has been looking for food in the campground, and found some in a cooler while a family were lunching at their table.   After getting set up, we went for a short walk around the campground.  It's nice to be back in the mountains.

Back at our view of Mt. Rundle

On Thursday, thanks to Elizabeth, we got  couple of loads of laundry done in the morning, while we enjoyed catching up with her.  Then we headed to the Barrier Lake Information Centre in Kananaskis to check on random camping areas in K-country.  Once we clarified that we weren't hiking in to a back country campground, but had a 34 foot trailer, she provided us with maps of the two main areas where this allowed, Motorized Public Land Use Zones of Kananaskis Country, particularly Mclean Creek,  and Ghost River Public Land Use Zone.  She warned us that we would be sharing with ATV's and people doing target shooting.   We reassured her that we were used to this activity from our time in the Arizona BLM areas.

We will be in Banff for a couple of weeks.