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<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Short Version: Nice weekend. Pretty mountains. Pretty Prairie. No pictures by Grizzly (yet)</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Trails. Calgary is filled with them, and no not just the bike and hiking variety. MacLeod Trail, Edmonton Trail, Crwochild Trail, all with their roots in the history of this land, when these roads were trails cut out of the wilderness and the bald-assed prairie.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Edmonton Trail? You got it, it was the road to Edmonton. MacLeod trail was the road to Fort MacLeod in the south.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">There are two trails that have held my imagination since we arrived here, but both have been given that designation in recent times. Highway 22, paved over only some 20 years ago is known as the Cowboy Trail. I lament the paving because it has made this two-laner into a busy road through paradise. I don’t use that term lightly. The road between the outskirts of Calgary and the Crowsnest Pass some 100 miles south of here is through gob-smackingly beautiful – and empty – rangeland. It is “Dances With Wolves” country, framed by the Rockies and the Whaleback wilderness to the west and the Porcupine Hills to the east. An immense, empty, serene space that beckons to me all the time. Even now I find my gaze flitting out of my office window to catch a glimpse of… another office building, but beyond that, out of sight of my natural eyes but not of my heart I know that it lies warming in this August sun, the sea of grasses swelling in wind whipped waves up and over the rolling hills. *sigh* </span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">The other road is the Kananaskis Trail, highway 40. In various guises as a forestry trunk road it dances through the foothills and the front ranges of the Rockies from the north of this province right down to the Crowsnest Pass, but for about 60 miles it traverses K-country, a collection of Provincial Parks, Wildlands and protected areas that Albertans know as their not-so-well-kept secret from the hordes of tourists. From the Trans-Canada not far from the borders of Banff it travels south through the Kananaskis Valley and climbs to the Highwood Pass, the highest paved road in Canada. It’s the road to our playground – camping, hiking, skiing, backpacking. We take visitors out there to show them the “real” Rockies, the ones that aren’t all gussied up with tourist attractions and overridden by tour busses.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Highway 40 and its sisters, and Highway 22 parallel each other, and there are three trails that connect them. The first starts at the frontier town of Longview, home of Ian Tyson and about 300 other souls, but once home to several thousand during the halcyon days of the first oil rush. Longview is the starting point of my favourite road race and the one I’d love to run with you guys:</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://www.akunamedia.com/websites/Kan100_webJuly%2021/route.htm" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span style="color:#800080;">http://www.akunamedia.com/websites/Kan100_webJuly%2021/route.htm</span></span></span></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Highway 541, the “Coal Trail” runs west from Longview and meets up with Hightway 40 at Highwood Junction, where 40 ends and the forestry trunk road continues through the mountains south. We’ve only been this way once in the 15 or so years we’ve been here, it’s about a 2 hour drive and there’s so much to do closer in to town that we’ve been exploring our neck of the woods first. </span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">But this past weekend was a long one here in Alberta and we decided that we didn’t want to spend it cooped up in town. Knowing that all of the campsites in closer locations would have been taken, we headed out Saturday morning to explore the forestry trunk road, bracing for the possibility that we’d return without finding a spot to camp.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">It was a gorgeous day, and the mountains were on their best behaviour, showing off their craggy best sides. Regardless of how things turned out we knew that we’d had a good afternoon.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">We drove south on a dusty gravel road until we came to Cataract Creek, and our drive through the camp grounds didn’t look too promising. We found the attendant working on cleaning the outhouses and asked him if there was any space. He named a couple of sites and said that if everything was taken he’d find us a spot. That brightened us up a bit, and not 20 metres further on we found a spot to camp. </span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Lodgepole pines towered over our site, giving us ample shade and the breeze through the canopy was sweet music to our ears. </span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Cataract Creek is a dry camp ground, with a pump for water but a “boil water” advisory. You don’t find too many mondo condo cabin cruiser land yachts out there, mostly die-hard campers and the occasional desperate family looking for someplace – any place to spend the night. But it is a very beautiful and tranquil spot. </span></span></p>
<p><br><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">The creek is very aptly named, for all that it seems to be a flat mountain stream as it meanders through a vast meadow in the valley below the camp ground. We hiked the meadow until the valley narrowed and the stream funneled into a gorge and over the first of many waterfalls. The trails are not really managed, and in some cases are little more than suggestions, so finding the falls is a bit of an adventure akin at times to Artie Johnson in Laugh-In (I am dating myself) parting the ferns and intoning “Verrry interestink!”</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">We didn’t do much beyond that. Sat by the fire, read books, listened to the wind, watched the stars.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">We decided yesterday not to head back the way we had come but to press on down the forestry trunk road to the second of the roads that connect highway 22 to the mountains.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">It was a bit unnerving because it was so dry and dusty. Any time we were passed by vehicles going in the other direction we were enshrouded in dust and we narrowly missed being hit by interesting individuals who were following too close behind those cars.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">As we drove I read about some of the hiking and equestrian trails that branched off of spots on the road. There appeared to be a cluster of them that started from a spot known as :”The Hump”, and a cryptic comment in one set of directions read “You will know The Hump when you reach it.”</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">The forests opened out a bit as we approached The Hump, wide grassy meadows reminded us that we were approaching range land, and we remembered the words of my brother-in-law Cowboy Dave who spent some weeks riding in the area the summer before he died. He said that it was one of the most spectacular pieces of wilderness to ride and get lost in that he’d ever seen.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">We pulled over at one point to just take it all in, thinking that it couldn’t get any better, and then we reached The Hump. The signs that said “Travel not recommended in winter.” weren’t lying. The Hump is a steep drop off from the side of a mountain, and from the crest you can see the land drop away in hill after rolling hill until it reaches the prairie. From the crest you swear that you can see Chicago in the distance, and perhaps Detroit if you’d had binoculars. There are trails that allow you to walk for miles along ridge lines, from peak to peak and back again. We will return, most likely with the boys later this summer before they part for college again.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">I have pictures but they don’t do the scene any justice, and I hope that the ones I take next visit will work. Here’s a couple that capture the view from there…</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span style="color:#800080;"><a class="H-lightbox-open" href="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/91874/width/1000/height/800/flags/" target="_blank"><img alt="5879250583_1d3ca055bf.jpg" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="17465" data-type="61" src="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/17465/width/500/height/334" style="; width: 500px; height: 334px"></a></span></span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span style="color:#800080;"><a class="H-lightbox-open" href="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/91876/width/1000/height/800/flags/" target="_blank"><img alt="1659895.bin?size=620x400" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="17466" data-type="61" src="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/17466/width/620/height/400" style="; width: 620px; height: 400px"></a></span></span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">We explored some campgrounds and then made it back to Highway 22 in time to have a late picnic lunch and contemplate the road home. From Rocky Mountain peaks to prairie in less than half an hour, it made us appreciate how lucky we are to be here, and to appreciate how much of this beautiful land we’ve not explored.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Often while traveling south on 22 we’ve wondered what it was like up in the hills, and now we know… a bit.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';"><a class="H-lightbox-open" href="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/91878/width/1000/height/800/flags/" target="_blank"><img alt="37845493.jpg" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="17467" data-type="61" src="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/17467/width/500/height/333" style="; width: 500px; height: 333px"></a></span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Trails. Calgary is filled with them, and no not just the bike and hiking variety. MacLeod Trail, Edmonton Trail, Crwochild Trail, all with their roots in the history of this land, when these roads were trails cut out of the wilderness and the bald-assed prairie.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Edmonton Trail? You got it, it was the road to Edmonton. MacLeod trail was the road to Fort MacLeod in the south.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">There are two trails that have held my imagination since we arrived here, but both have been given that designation in recent times. Highway 22, paved over only some 20 years ago is known as the Cowboy Trail. I lament the paving because it has made this two-laner into a busy road through paradise. I don’t use that term lightly. The road between the outskirts of Calgary and the Crowsnest Pass some 100 miles south of here is through gob-smackingly beautiful – and empty – rangeland. It is “Dances With Wolves” country, framed by the Rockies and the Whaleback wilderness to the west and the Porcupine Hills to the east. An immense, empty, serene space that beckons to me all the time. Even now I find my gaze flitting out of my office window to catch a glimpse of… another office building, but beyond that, out of sight of my natural eyes but not of my heart I know that it lies warming in this August sun, the sea of grasses swelling in wind whipped waves up and over the rolling hills. *sigh* </span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">The other road is the Kananaskis Trail, highway 40. In various guises as a forestry trunk road it dances through the foothills and the front ranges of the Rockies from the north of this province right down to the Crowsnest Pass, but for about 60 miles it traverses K-country, a collection of Provincial Parks, Wildlands and protected areas that Albertans know as their not-so-well-kept secret from the hordes of tourists. From the Trans-Canada not far from the borders of Banff it travels south through the Kananaskis Valley and climbs to the Highwood Pass, the highest paved road in Canada. It’s the road to our playground – camping, hiking, skiing, backpacking. We take visitors out there to show them the “real” Rockies, the ones that aren’t all gussied up with tourist attractions and overridden by tour busses.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Highway 40 and its sisters, and Highway 22 parallel each other, and there are three trails that connect them. The first starts at the frontier town of Longview, home of Ian Tyson and about 300 other souls, but once home to several thousand during the halcyon days of the first oil rush. Longview is the starting point of my favourite road race and the one I’d love to run with you guys:</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://www.akunamedia.com/websites/Kan100_webJuly%2021/route.htm" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span style="color:#800080;">http://www.akunamedia.com/websites/Kan100_webJuly%2021/route.htm</span></span></span></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Highway 541, the “Coal Trail” runs west from Longview and meets up with Hightway 40 at Highwood Junction, where 40 ends and the forestry trunk road continues through the mountains south. We’ve only been this way once in the 15 or so years we’ve been here, it’s about a 2 hour drive and there’s so much to do closer in to town that we’ve been exploring our neck of the woods first. </span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">But this past weekend was a long one here in Alberta and we decided that we didn’t want to spend it cooped up in town. Knowing that all of the campsites in closer locations would have been taken, we headed out Saturday morning to explore the forestry trunk road, bracing for the possibility that we’d return without finding a spot to camp.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">It was a gorgeous day, and the mountains were on their best behaviour, showing off their craggy best sides. Regardless of how things turned out we knew that we’d had a good afternoon.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">We drove south on a dusty gravel road until we came to Cataract Creek, and our drive through the camp grounds didn’t look too promising. We found the attendant working on cleaning the outhouses and asked him if there was any space. He named a couple of sites and said that if everything was taken he’d find us a spot. That brightened us up a bit, and not 20 metres further on we found a spot to camp. </span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Lodgepole pines towered over our site, giving us ample shade and the breeze through the canopy was sweet music to our ears. </span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Cataract Creek is a dry camp ground, with a pump for water but a “boil water” advisory. You don’t find too many mondo condo cabin cruiser land yachts out there, mostly die-hard campers and the occasional desperate family looking for someplace – any place to spend the night. But it is a very beautiful and tranquil spot. </span></span></p>
<p><br><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">The creek is very aptly named, for all that it seems to be a flat mountain stream as it meanders through a vast meadow in the valley below the camp ground. We hiked the meadow until the valley narrowed and the stream funneled into a gorge and over the first of many waterfalls. The trails are not really managed, and in some cases are little more than suggestions, so finding the falls is a bit of an adventure akin at times to Artie Johnson in Laugh-In (I am dating myself) parting the ferns and intoning “Verrry interestink!”</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">We didn’t do much beyond that. Sat by the fire, read books, listened to the wind, watched the stars.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">We decided yesterday not to head back the way we had come but to press on down the forestry trunk road to the second of the roads that connect highway 22 to the mountains.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">It was a bit unnerving because it was so dry and dusty. Any time we were passed by vehicles going in the other direction we were enshrouded in dust and we narrowly missed being hit by interesting individuals who were following too close behind those cars.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">As we drove I read about some of the hiking and equestrian trails that branched off of spots on the road. There appeared to be a cluster of them that started from a spot known as :”The Hump”, and a cryptic comment in one set of directions read “You will know The Hump when you reach it.”</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">The forests opened out a bit as we approached The Hump, wide grassy meadows reminded us that we were approaching range land, and we remembered the words of my brother-in-law Cowboy Dave who spent some weeks riding in the area the summer before he died. He said that it was one of the most spectacular pieces of wilderness to ride and get lost in that he’d ever seen.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">We pulled over at one point to just take it all in, thinking that it couldn’t get any better, and then we reached The Hump. The signs that said “Travel not recommended in winter.” weren’t lying. The Hump is a steep drop off from the side of a mountain, and from the crest you can see the land drop away in hill after rolling hill until it reaches the prairie. From the crest you swear that you can see Chicago in the distance, and perhaps Detroit if you’d had binoculars. There are trails that allow you to walk for miles along ridge lines, from peak to peak and back again. We will return, most likely with the boys later this summer before they part for college again.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">I have pictures but they don’t do the scene any justice, and I hope that the ones I take next visit will work. Here’s a couple that capture the view from there…</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span style="color:#800080;"><a class="H-lightbox-open" href="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/91874/width/1000/height/800/flags/" target="_blank"><img alt="5879250583_1d3ca055bf.jpg" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="17465" data-type="61" src="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/17465/width/500/height/334" style="; width: 500px; height: 334px"></a></span></span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span style="color:#800080;"><a class="H-lightbox-open" href="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/91876/width/1000/height/800/flags/" target="_blank"><img alt="1659895.bin?size=620x400" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="17466" data-type="61" src="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/17466/width/620/height/400" style="; width: 620px; height: 400px"></a></span></span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">We explored some campgrounds and then made it back to Highway 22 in time to have a late picnic lunch and contemplate the road home. From Rocky Mountain peaks to prairie in less than half an hour, it made us appreciate how lucky we are to be here, and to appreciate how much of this beautiful land we’ve not explored.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';">Often while traveling south on 22 we’ve wondered what it was like up in the hills, and now we know… a bit.</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman';"><a class="H-lightbox-open" href="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/91878/width/1000/height/800/flags/" target="_blank"><img alt="37845493.jpg" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="17467" data-type="61" src="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/17467/width/500/height/333" style="; width: 500px; height: 333px"></a></span></span></p>
<p> </p>
