Week ending Jul 28, 2016 Beaver Mines Lake, Pincher Creek

Friday morning, we woke to a colorful sunrise on the mountains to the west.

Sunrise over Beaver Mines Lake

 Later, we drove into Lethbridge for lunch and shopping.  We stopped on the way back at Coalfields SD1245 one room school house, where we have the best cell signal west of, and including, Pincher Creek, so we could call Dad. 

Saturday, walked the campground.   A spruce grouse posed nicely for us on the road through the campground.  After a couple of chicks scurried across, she stopped again on a rock beside the road.
 

Spruce Grouse

Sunday, walked the campground and watched Nascar.

Monday while after packing up, we had problems running in  the living room slide, so Joan found a couple who helped us push it in.  It almost sounded like the motor was dead, but when 3 people pushed, it sounded normal, so just wasn't moving.   We headed back to Pincher Creek Veterans Memorial CG.   When we got set up, we did a test run on running in the living room slideout.   It made really weird noises, so we are not sure what is happening now.


Tuesday,  we took it easy.


Wednesday we talked to the hosts about RV repair here.  They highly recommended Scougall's in Ft. McLeod, which is where they bought their trailer.    Joan reminded John that when we have had trouble before, we jacked up the back end of the trailer 1.5 inches.  We gave that a try, and it worked like it usually does.    In the afternoon, George arrived.   We watched the Rogers Cup tennis.


Thursday, we did a waterfalls tour in the area.  We started with Lumbreck Falls off Highway 3 between Pincher Creek and the Crowsnest area.

Lundbreck Falls

Then we went to Castle Falls, at the Castle Falls Rec Area.  After taking pictures of the falls and having lunch, we did  2.5 km walk around the 3 loops in the campground.

Castle Falls

After returning to the trailer, we watched more tennis.

Week ending Jul 21, 2016 Pincher Creek and Beaver Mines Lake Rec Area

Friday, Joan hadn't slept well because she couldn't find and catch a moth that was banging on the ceiling, or so she thought.  When she picked up our Koodo bag, she found that a mouse had chewed through the bag and into one of the foil wrapped granola bars left from our lunch on Thursday.  It might have been the mouse bumping around that she heard.     So out came our sticky pad mouse traps.  The next morning, we had a mouse in the trap. 

There were several deer in a little green area across the street behind the trailer.

Then we drove out to Beaver Mines Lake Rec Area.  It is a nice lake, and had large treed sites.  There were several of them backing onto an open area facing satellite- and sun-wards that looked like they would work for us.   We also checked out a couple of other rec areas that didn't look as promising.  On our way back towards town, we took a route that wound up dead-ending on a restricted Shell Gas Plant Road.  So, we decided to take the GPS recommendation of Adanac Road over a small pass (higher than Piney Point Viewpoint, which we did a few days ago) into Hillcrest, then back along highway 3.

Friday evening, there was a tornado warning for the Pincher Creek area.  We got quite a bit of hail, banging off the roof of the trailer, some about the size of twoonie, most of it early in the evening.
We lost our satellite signal for a few minutes a few times, which is when we first noticed the warning while checking on the internet to see how long the rain would last.  Trever also texted us about the tornado warning a few minutes later.  Fortunately, no evidence of a tornado near us.

Hail stone with toonie

Saturday, Sunday, we left the rec areas for the weekenders, and watched our usual sports.  We did see a mother deer with a couple of young ones behind the trailer.

Monday, packed up and went to Beaver Mines Lake Rec Area.  There is no cell service here, so no internet access either.  Our preferred site 26 was available.  After plugging in the solar panels,  getting a satellite signal and starting  the generator to make sure it was still happy,  we did a little walk down to the lake and along the shore.

Beaver Mines Lake

There were a few kayaks and a fishing boat on the lake.   We saw Camp Impeesa on the north side of the lake.  It is one of the premier Boy Scout camps.  We saw a raptor patrolling the trees along the shore.  Later in the afternoon we saw a herd of deer run through the open area behind the trailer.    The solar panels lost the sun about 4pm, since we didn't have enough line on them to get them past the trees on the west side of the trailer.

Tuesday morning, we found that the sun didn't get onto the solar panels until about 10:30.  That only gives us about 5.5 hours of solar during the day.  That just seems wrong with Alberta's long daylight. We went for a 5k walk around the rec area.  We had a short chat with the Conservation Officer and found out that the flood mitigation done in the park was because of flooding in 2013.  We had wind gusts in the afternoon which kept the flies down, so we dug out the chairs and hammock to enjoy the sun.

Wednesday morning, we walked the intrepretive trail through the rec area, a loop of about 4k.   On our way back from the far end, we chatted with a couple of park workers.  We checked whether we could move to a new site, since we were only 2 days into the week we had paid for.  No problem.  So we moved, and got set up again by about 2pm.  Much better solar access here, and a view of the lake.  Even with the solar unplugged for almost 2 hours during prime time while we moved, we got almost twice as many amp hours by the end of the day.

Beaver Mines Lake from campsite

north view of Table Mountain from campsite

Thursday, we walked along the South Castle Road.   Our plan was to follow an ATV route that looked like it followed a cut-line, since it goes straight for about 3 km.  However, we wound up doing an A shape away from that route.  We were surprised at the number of trailers boon-docking beside the trail route, since the road down to it was fairly steep and very eroded.  We chatted with a fellow, who said that they come in at a point further down that road, which turned out to be South Castle Road.  We carried on to that where that road came in from the road into the rec area, about 1 km from the rec area.  We carried on south along that road, and chatted with a couple of forestry folks on ATV's.  They had communication devices which they told us were the Spot systems.  We had looked at the Spot devices about 4 years ago at the recommendation of an RCMP officer vacationing in one of the campgrounds we stayed in.  It is used by the forestry folks to post their location periodically as they are patrolling the forest.   They did not know where our cut-line route was, but said that there was an ATV trail further up that came in from that side.   We carried on a bit and came to that point, followed it for about 50m and saw the cut-line route going in both directions.   We took the route away from the campground.  In a short distance, it rejoined the Castle road.  There was an ATV crossing at this point, but it didn't look like it aligned with the cut-line route.  According to our GPS, we were less than 2km from our trail-head, so we carried on the castle road until we were about 3km from our start point.  The problem was that we were now significantly off the line that the cut-line should have gone.   Time to stop for a snack, and head back.   When we got back to where the cut-line route met the road, we checked the other side of the road for the ATV trail.  The route in the direction we wanted to go dead-ended at a campsite, with an old privy.

We decided to return to the trail head, this time along the cut-line, to see where it came out.  We crossed a dry creek bed, that looked like it had flooded back in 2013.   This was an open area with great views of Table Mountain and its neighbours. 

west view of Table Mountain from cut-line trail

Carrying on, we came in through the boondocking area we had seen earlier.  No wonder we couldn't find the cut-line.    Our little trip was a bit more than 8km return, but there was only the one short steep slope heading down from the start, so it wasn't too strenuous.

Week ending Jul 14, 2016 Raymond, Pincher Creek

Friday, we walked downtown to see if the hardware store had more string for our blinds.   They were out, but thought that there might be some on the load later that day.

Saturday, we walked downtown for the 'trade show', and checked to see if the string had come in. No luck on either count.  We're not sure what happened to the trade show.

Sunday, we walked along the canal-side road out to a grid road, back to town along the highway, and then through the golf community north of the campground.

Monday, we moved to Pincher Creek.  After getting set up we did laundry at the coin laundry.

Tuesday, we did a walk along Pincher Creek, which flows right behind the campground, and along main street.  Stopped at visitor info to pick up the Beauvais Lake PP brochure, and some info on hiking.  They were out of the summer trails guide for the area, so sent us to the Provincial Building, where we got one. 

One of many murals downtown

St Johns Anglican Church - 1884
The oldest continuously practicing Anglican church in Alberta

Lebel Mansion

While we were shopping earlier in the day, Joan had been looking at some dates.   It got John thinking back to the  Medjool date milkshakes at Imperial Date Gardens by Yuma.    So we picked up some Medjool dates and French vanilla ice cream.  When we got back to the trailer Joan made date milkshakes.  They were excellent.

Wednesday, we went to Beauvais Lake PP.  We started at Scotts Point, doing a 1km hike along the point.  Then we did a 5km, 180m elevation gain hike taking us up to Piney Point Viewpoint where we had fantastic views of the prairie, and a gateway into the mountains.
 

We returned down to the south west side of the lake, then back along the South Shore Trail.

Lily Pads

Beauvais Lake

 We checked out the campground, and there are several power sites from which we should be able to get satellite signal.  There are many trails through the hills on the west side of the park.  On our way back from the park, we noticed an osprey, with 2 young ones, on a nest.

Osprey with young

On Wednesday evening, we called George to confirm his vacation time, and let him know where we are.   He starts his vacation at the end of next week, so we booked the week from July 25 to Aug 1 back here at the Pincher Creek Veterans Memorial Campground.

Thursday, we did the Carbondale Hill Outlook Hike.    It was described as a 3.5 km hike with a 460m elevation gain on the access road to a fire lookout.  The trail surface was good, but it was a steady uphill slog.  We got to the 3.5 km mark around 2 hours, but were still 100m below the 1800m elevation of the lookout.   At this point, Joan decided she had gone as far as she needed to go.  At that point, there were panaramic views of the Castle River valley, and the mountains to the south. We were past the last set of gates before the lookout, but it was still not in sight.    Once again John carried on to see how far it was to the lookout.  After about half a kilometer, the lookout could now be seen, well above the road.  Shortly after that, a skittish deer was taking a shortcut straight up the slope that the road was crossing.

After another switchback on the road, getting back under the lookout, at about .8km past where Joan stopped, John noticed that the road continued past the lookout, still about 50m above the road.  He decided to return, since it looked like it could still be another .5km to get right up to the lookout, and Joan had been waiting long enough.

Carbondale Hill Lookout

We headed back down the road, stopping at a viewpoint about 2km above the parking lot to have our lunch.  While there, we chatted with a young fellow who has been working at Castle Mountain Resort for the last 5 years.  We could see the runs on Castle Mountain from the viewpoint.

Castle Resort

Our hike was 8.3 km in 3.5 hours.   The guide book said 1.5 to 2 hours to the outlook, so we weren't a whole lot longer than estimated.   On the way back from the hike, we stopped at the Beaver Mines General Store, but they didn't have any slush drinks.  Instead, Joan made date shakes again, a nice treat after a long walk.

Week ending Jul 7, 2016 Twin Valley Reservoir, Raymond, Police Outpost PP, Warner

On Friday we walked up to the reservoir.  We thought we would try golfing in Stavely, but there was a mixed open tournament on.  We decided to check out Travers Dam Provincial Rec Area.  It was packed.   Twin Valley was a much better choice on a long weekend.

On Saturday,  Joan made waffles for breakfast.   We walked up to the reservoir again.   For supper we had ribs, then watched some Wimbledon and the Nascar race. 

Sunday morning, we drove to Roy's Place in Claresholm for breakfast.    On the way back, we stopped at Stavely again to try a round of golf.  We remembered that it is a good idea to check the calendar at the clubhouse.  The Mixed Open Tournament that the sign is for is next weekend, not this one.  We did most of a round of golf.  The course was quiet enough that Joan shot two balls for more practice.  Even with that, we caught up to a group of 6 people golfing together.  Rather than waiting for them, we repeated a hole and decided we had enough.

On Monday we packed up and headed to Raymond for a week.  Set up at the same site we were in earlier this year, after taking a look at a couple of other sites

After breakfast Tuesday morning, we headed for Police Outpost Provincial Park, south of Cardston.  We stopped in Cardston to pick up a few groceries. The area coming into Police Outpost is beautiful rolling ranch country with the mountains of Waterton in the background.

There was a site beside the road with 3 old abandoned trailers, and a bunch of rock creations.   This site is being 'demolished' by the Cardston County Council.

The campground at Police Outpost has a few too many trees for good satellite reception, which we expected.   As well, even the sites that would be long enough for our trailer were pretty narrow.   With all of the beautiful views in the area, all you would see from the campground would be the poplar trees.  No cell service available here either.  One viewpoint over the lake had an impressive variety of wild flowers along the path.

There is a nice little lake with an island in it.

Outpost Lake

We saw some ducks, including some babies, and a muskrat.

We crossed the wood bridge to the island, and walked the short distance to the far end of the island.  We met a fellow who had caught and released a small trout.  Once we were done with the park, we decided to check out the Outpost Wetlands next to it.   The Wetlands, however, are closed from May 1 to July 31.  
On our way back, we saw picturesque little St. Stephen Catholic Church and cemetery, one of the first churches in southern Alberta.  

St Stephens

Then we carried on to Whiskey Gap, another ghost town.  It was a major point on the smuggling route between Canada and the United States during prohibition, first in Alberta, then going the other way to the States.   We had our lunch at a commemorative sign in Del Bonita.    Del Bonita is a ghost town now, with only a few houses.  It had a significant high school built in 1964, which is obviously not in use anymore.  It's hard to believe that there was a girl from Del Bonita in the university residence when Joan was there.  About 8 km north of Del Bonita, we found the Del Bonita Community Campground, on the North Milk River.  It is on a canoe route, which starts on the North Milk River at Whiskey Gap and goes along the Milk through Milk River, and Writing-on-Stone, with stop points at several bridges along the way.

Milk River Canoe Route

We were surprised at the number of colonies we saw south of McGrath.

Wednesday, we did a trip to the Alberta Birds of Prey.  It was closed when we were in the area in April.   They have lots of owls, eagles, hawks, etc. and even a garter snake.

Great Horned and Barn Owls

Swainsons Hawk

Bald Eagle

Golden Eagle

Then we headed to Lethbridge to do some shopping.  John got new hiking boots to replace the ones that got cut up in the Arizona lava fields. 

Thursday morning, we drove to New Dayton, a very small place south on highway 4, which we noticed had a campground. It was a reasonable spot with 15amp power and water at pull through sites that don't look like they get much use.   There was a sign saying to pay at the store, or call the phone number listed.  We stopped at the only store, which is half liquor store and half groceries. The lady told us that she used to take the payments for the campground, but hadn't been doing it for a while.  When she did, the charge was $10 a night, which would be an excellent price!

We carried on to Warner to the Devil's Coulee Dinosaur & Heritage Museum.  The young ladies gave us quite a nice tour of their display of fossils and casts.  The Devil's Coulee was discovered by 17 yr old Wendy Sloboda, with her father.  The majority of the fossils here were of eggs and embryos, as this was a nesting site for a wide variety of dinosaurs.

 
Then we stopped at the bakery for a loaf of bread, cinnamon bun and sour cream twist which were quite good.  When we parked there, because the front tire was turned in toward the curb, John noticed quite a bit of wear on the inside edge of the tire.   We decided to head for Lethbridge to get the front tires replaced.  On the way there we checked out Ridge County Park, on the south side of the Milk River Ridge Reservoir.  It is a very nice looking park that should work for us in this area. 
At Kal Tire, we were able to get two new tires for the rear and the old rear tires moved to the front.  The service rep told us that the cause of the wear on the inside of the tire was due to bad shocks, so we had them replace the shocks.  While they were doing that we picked up a couple of books and did a bit of walk around downtown Lethbridge before returning to pick up the truck around 4:00 pm.   A busy day.