Week Four…Campers, Recycling and Odd Skates

Week Four…Campers, Recycling and Odd Skates

This has been an interesting and busy week at Spray Lake.  The weather has been pretty good although the wind is sure whipping things up as I write this.  It seems to come out of nowhere…it can be as quiet and sunny as can be and suddenly the wind is blowing hard.  The tarps outside the fifth wheel are dancing in the wind right now…scares Oso half to death!  

 Our little Oso has been waking us up at night lately too…not sure what he smells or hears, but suddenly he’ll start growling and then barking his head off.  He runs to the back of the couch and looks out the window but it’s so dark at night there isn’t really anything to see.  It’s probably moose or deer moving through the area…or maybe coyotes.  We’ve seen trace of all of these animals close to our campsite.  The coyote in this picture was on the road down to Canmore…he sure looks nice and healthy!

There was a young couple through the campsite early this week.  They were from Holland and had flown into Calgary where they purchased very fancy mountain bikes.  They had begun their journey in Banff and we were the first stop on their trip along the Great Divide Trail.  At the end of August, they planned to have gone as far as Chihuahua, Mexico.  The bike trail from Banff to our campsite is all uphill and these kids were pretty tired.  They managed to make some dinner and then crawled into their tent.  Hopefully, the next couple days would not be quite as strenuous for them as it wouldn’t be such a steep climb.  Imagine traveling by bicycle all the way from Banff Alberta to Chihuahua Mexico…amazing!  Bet they’ll have great big strong legs by the time they get there!

Oddly enough we had another visitor from Holland.  He was a wildlife photographer and had been in BC and Alberta for about three weeks…he and his wife had two more days before heading back to Holland.  They stopped in to see if we could recommend a place where they’d be sure to see animals.  We told him about Mt. Engadine, our favourite moose watching place, and about Interlakes where two bear cubs who had lost their mother over the winter were often seen out on the ice on the lake fishing.  He got quite excited about the possibility of seeing the cubs and off he went with his two-foot-long telescopic lenses and his fancy cameras.  I never hear whether he saw the bears, but hope that he was able to find them and get some pictures. 

The moose that frequent the area around Mt. Engadine are slowly coming back  There is something in the soil, salt or some kind of mineral, right in front of the lodge that the moose like.   They create a big muddy spot there and you are very likely to see them there early in the morning.  I got some amazing pictures of them last time we were here in 2011 and hope to get some more this year.

.

So….we went fishing…and we got skunked!  It was a beautiful day and we decided that since we’d bought some bait we might as well go try it out.  The lake is very low at this end, but at the south end of the campsite there’s still some nice water for the fish.  We hiked quite a ways down through the bush and out onto a little peninsula in the lake.  We fished for a couple hours and though we didn’t catch any fish, we saw them.  The little rascals would follow your bait into shore but wouldn’t take it.  I cast out time and time again right where I could see the fish and they would again follow the bait to shore…guess they just weren’t hungry! There are wonderful lake trout here and the best bait is smelt.  The conservation officers are very, very strict on what can and can’t be used in the lake.  Using minnows is a big no-no since they don’t want any other kind of fish introduced to the lake.  They are strict about your hooks and other fishing equipment.  You are not allowed to use barbed hooks…the CO’s will actually take a ball of cotton and run it down the hook and if it catches on anything, you could get a fine.  Pretty serious about the rules aren’t they!

Yesterday morning we finally sorted our recycling.  We’ve got about $150 worth of cans and bottles so far…not bad for the first three weeks of camping.  Once it gets busier and especially after a long weekend we will make quite a bit more.  When we were here in 2011, we made $1200 just in recycling…nice little bonus!

The girl in this picture must truly be a dedicated athlete!  I’ve seen several people doing this and I think they are practicing or keeping in shape for cross country skiing.  Or perhaps it is just a way for them to keep in shape.  They wear these odd looking roller skates that are about two feet long and use cross country ski poles to push themselves along.  In any event, it looks like a very strenuous sport, especially when you see them going uphill…sorry, it’s not for me!  Since we are about 5500’ in elevation there are lots of winter sports here and I expect people like to keep in shape for them throughout the year.

The other day we went for a walk in the forest to the north.   We walked off the trail and through the bush…the moss on the ground was absolutely amazing…it must have been four or five inches thick.  It was so soft and felt so good to sink your feet down into it.  Everything is starting to grow now…the new grass is greening up the place and the leaves are finally out on most of the trees.  I even saw the very first wild strawberry blossoms of the season just this morning...maybe spring has sprung in the Rocky Mountains!