Wildlife and Waterfalls

Today was an exceptional wildlife day.  We haven't seen too much yet, aside from a deer on a road in Pincher Creek and the infamous bear rock.  Mom noticed an odd rock in the grass, we slowed down and sure enough, it was furry and moving!  Also, Dad spotted a moose in the slough off the road yesterday and we started a bit of a traffic jam.  That's a good rule in national parks, if there are cars stopped, especially with open windows, chances are really good it's wildlife.  We also saw a few bears, one on the way into the park, which had cubs hiding in the grass we later learned from another tourist, and a bear on the way out of the park.  In the townsite we saw another 2 deer, oddly with a big blue mark on it's head, as well as a deer out in the wild.  I spotted it heading into the trees at Oil City and my Mom went in and flushed it out and we watched the doe eat grass for awhile, and Dad let the tourist who told us about the bear cubs know that the deer was there.  Aren't we nice.  We also saw a hawk, and to Dad's delight (not really, but he mentioned it when we were discussing our animal sightings) a crow.

We started our day heading down to Cameron Lake, which is right at the international border but doesn't cross it.  We did have a stop off at Oil City.  Oil was found here, and it was the location of the first oil well in western Canada.  And as an added bonus some of my ancestors worked on it.  My great-great Grandpa Jack Drader, the goat hunter, worked on it.  We call him that because there is this old picture of him with a goat that they killed while at the oil site.  His brother Ernst was the only baby actually born there.  They had vast goals of building a major village out in the mountains.  It never came to fruition but there are still foundations left from the ambitious hotel project that was never finished.

Sadly, the parking lot at Cameron Lake had a snow pile.  That's right, they still had a pile of snow left from winter.  In July.  And the mountain at the far end of the lake was covered with snow as well and there were more than a few avalanche warnings, which I'm sure are more for winter travellers, but it was a good chunk of snow that could come down if you were in the wrong spot.  They heavily promote canoeing or kayaking, which many took advantage of.  I'm not sure if I would be too keen on it.  Because of the mountains and the snow the water temperatures are around 8' C on the surface.  Might be a little cold if you fall in!

We hiked along the trail that winds around the lake, very close to the shore.  It was about a 3km hike and of course there was a risk of bears.  But we didn't see any or hear from anyone about any spotted in the area.  Always good to hear.  It was a nice hike but not too much to see along the way aside from the lake views that popped up every once and awhile.

Right in town you can see the Cameron Waterfall.  It comes from Cameron lake, shocking I know.  It was an unexpected little gem right in the townsite.  And it was flowing fairly steady, I wouldn't want to ride down the falls!  And they even had a little trail to let you go up to the top to see the falls from a new angle.









After that we headed back to Red Rock Canyon.  Well, there is really only 2 options, Red Rock or Cameron Lake.  The canyon was still filled with people in the water.  Instead of the canyon loop trail again we headed out to Blakiston Falls.  The guidebooks said it was only a 1 km trail but it was almost double that, and then we still had to come back.  And just before we hit the trail there was a group of people watching a black bear and her cubs across the way.  Dad spotted them but I was too slow.  They did leave quite quickly and we didn't see them along the trail to the falls, which I was happy about.  The falls were worth the hike.  Funniest part was that there were signs asking people to report bear sightings and we had a park ranger pass us on our way back.  We figured we could let her know and she said that there have been a lot of bears in the area and she was glad we saw them.  So I get the impression they aren't really that concerned with the bears interacting with people.

After the hike we had a bit of free time so we checked out a few of the scenic viewpoints on the outside of the park.  I must commend the park, the scenic viewpoints really were very nice.  I'm so used to them being mostly a pull off spot with a little bit of scenery.  It was interesting to see how quickly the prairies turn into mountains.  Especially with all the wildflowers everywhere.

To our amusement we have seen dozens of squirrels in the park today.  They are everywhere yet we haven't run any over!