Week ending Jul 13, 2017 Rocky Mountain House to Alix

Friday morning, we did a short walk through Riverside Park on the north west corner of Rocky.  Then at Warehouse One we found a tee-shirt we had seen a man wearing in Rimbey.  Its slogan is "I know I'm not perfect, but I'm Canadian.  That's close enough".   We look forward to wearing it when we go back to the USA in the winter.

Saturday, we did a recon mission to a boon-docking spot we found on-line.   There are a couple of spots, on Abraham Lake near the Bighorn Dam.   Our preferred one is just past where Allstones Creek flows under the highway.  Even on a summer weekend, there were some spots available there.   

Abraham Lake from Allstones Creek 

Memorial for Silas Abraham near Bighorn Dam

 On the way back, we drove up to Crescent Falls, which is in a Provincial Rec Area.   We stopped at the overlook of the river downstream from the falls, then continued to the upper campground parking area.  There was no signage there indicating how to walk to the falls viewpoint, so we went down the hill toward the lower campground.  On the left hand side we found the viewpoint parking lot, but it only holds about 10 vehicles, so we parked along the right hand side of the road, which is marked for parking.  From the viewpoint, we could see people on the flat area at the bottom of the falls, so headed up the much-traveled trail figuring it would get us there.   After climbing for a while (should have been dropping to get to the bottom of the falls), we asked a group if we were going the right direction to get to the bottom of the falls (at least that's what we thought we asked).  They told us to carry on the way we were going, and at the end of the trail we would see a trail going down to the bottom.    We carried on a while more, but just kept getting higher and higher.   Since this wasn't making much sense, we asked a woman coming down the trail whether she had been at the bottom.  She said no.  She had come the couple of km from the previous viewpoint, and had not seen any trails going down into the canyon.    So we returned to the  truck.  We figure we had missed a trail, much less traveled, that went slowly down from the viewpoint.  Unfortunately, we could not see far enough along it to tell how steep it got.

Crescent Falls

Sunday morning, we walked from Riverview RV Park to Highway 11, then about 1 1/4 km to a trail-head going into Crimson Lake PP.  At about 2 1/2 km on this trail, we go to the boat dock on one of the Twin Lakes.   The round trip was about 9 km. 

Twin Lake

Monday, we did another recon trip, up Sunchild Road to the Brazeau Reservoir Rec Area.   The GPS did not want us to go that way for some unknown reason, despite the fact that the road is paved, and it would be twice the time to go north to Drayton Valley to get there.   We were hoping to see animals, as it is undeveloped country.  Power service in the rec area, and lots of boon-docking nearby.  Then we drove through Lodgepole, and  by Drayton Valley, where we finally saw one deer, then back down 22 to Rocky Mountain House.

Tuesday we did a bit of shopping before leaving the next day.   Due to smoke from the BC fires, we decided to head east instead of boon-docking  on Abraham Lake.  We checked with the campground at Alix, on its lake.  They didn't have a lakeside site, the only ones from which we could get satellite, available until Sunday.

On Wednesday, we headed to Alix on our way to Stettler.   When we talked to the caretaker, she said that she had tried to confirm one of the sites with a woman who had booked them, but couldn't get hold of her, so she said we could have site 2   It was interesting, because it had some low hanging poplar branches that were too low.  The operator is not allowed to prune trees, and figured it would take a while for the town guys to find time to do any pruning, which they might decide not to do.  However, by coming into the site from the opposite direction, we were able to get around behind them into the site, with some wiggling back and forth.  There is no water or sewer at the sites, so John decided it was easier to fill the tank with our 7 gallon container instead of taking the trailer to the fill building.   Fortunately the caretakers had a couple of hoses to add to our 50 & 25 ft water hoses that would reach to the building, so we didn't have to fill from containers (we have used the containers a few times while boon-docking, and it takes a while to transfer the water from the containers since they are quite heavy.   There is a small lake here with a little beach.  Motorboats are allowed on the lake, so it could be interesting if we want to use our inflatable.
 
The first 'Campground Regulation' is interesting.  It reads 'Enjoy your stay and let others enjoy theirs.'  We think this is the first time we had a regulation to enjoy our stay.    After the regulations it says that 'Violations of any of these regulations will result in eviction with no refund.'


On Thursday morning we woke to see the calm lake.   There were several pelicans fishing on the lake.

A calm morning

Pelican on Alix Lake

Mid morning, we headed to the Pheasantback Golf Course, about 7 km north of Stettler.  It was much busier than most courses, but it is July now, but we were able to get into the back 9 holes.   It is a pretty little course, but has a lot of water.  The tee boxes for hole 1 and hole 10, which are side by side, give an idea of the challenges.  After driving a couple of balls with unwanted topspin straight into the pond, we headed around to the other side of the pond and played from there.   We found it frustrating as John lost at least 5 balls into the water or trees, and even Joan lost a couple of balls.

Hole 10 fairway on left across the water