Getting Extra Close to Nature

Today we learned the lesson of looking in front instead of up for animals.  When we were heading back to Waterton townsite we turned a corner and there were 2 bighorn sheep right in front of us on the road.  And here Dad has been using his binoculars all the time scanning the basins that looked good for potential sightings.  The sheep stared at us and then ran past and stood in front of another car for a bit.  We
were extra close that time!  

We started our day out with more hiking.  Hey, Waterton has a lot of awesome hiking and aside from the Waterton Lakes and Cameron Lake you have to hike in to see things, no driving option at all.  We picked Crandell lake first.  The one map I had found online was telling me about how there was a waterfall half way and the waterfall route was the shorter one to get to the lake.  Sold.  We were only going to go as far as the waterfall, only as we were following the signs we realized that there was no waterfall.  On either side.  So we went to the lake instead and it was worth it.  It was amazing to find this lovely little lake in the middle of the mountains fairly untouched.  And no parking lot!  I thought that the one hill up was pretty steep and then all of a sudden these 3 bikers went straight up with no problem.  I was impressed.  The only downfall was that on the way back we passed a family that spotted a bear just off the trail on their way.  We were a little concerned but then we realized that the family with small children didn't seem concerned at all.  Also, we've learned much about bear safety.  Mostly because every public bathroom has some sort of wildlife warning, as well as the guys on the boat gave many tips.  The best defence is to talk loudly.  Our voices scare them away but bells attract them because it is an unusual noise.  But many people still wore bells.  But we didn't see the bear on the way, the family said they talked very loudly and he disappeared quickly.  So we talked loudly on the way back to the truck, hey, you can't be too safe with bears!











Looking for bears!  Not really, but he's looking at something.







The hill we had to go up and down, just off to the left is one of the bikers coming up, and it is steeper than it looks




With the weather being so lovely and the fact that we still had some time left on our day pass we decided to do another hike.  This time we headed out to Bertha Lake.  And there was an actual waterfall along the way this time.  Bertha lake is very similar to Crandell lake in that you can only get there by hiking.  There is a creek that feeds into Waterton lake that you follow for quite some time as well.  We decided against the actual lake seeing as it was another 5 km round trip on top of our already longish hike.  But the views of Upper Waterton Lake were fabulous and it was a fairly easy hike.  We even passed a couple carrying their close to newborn baby back down.  And by carrying I mean in their arms.  No carriers.

When we were back at the campsite and were looking at the maps and realized that we hiked 9 km today.  I'm pretty impressed with myself.

We also did another loop in the Bison Paddock.  It's free, it has bison!  They were a lot closer this time around.  And I saw a bluebird for the first time.  Waterton park has an amazing amount of bird species, some 250 types nest and travel through the park.  Our campground certainly shows it, all you can hear is bird noises all day!


 And this is the bear grass flower.  They only grow in certain altitudes and can get really tall.  And the bears like to eat the grass they grow out of



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