Fireworks, Moose and Possible Changes…

The week started off with a bang…literally!  Tom and I were sitting in the fifth wheel last Thursday night…it was rainy and cool so we stayed in.  Suddenly we heard this huge BANG and instantly thought someone was shooting off bear bangers (bear bangers are sort of a huge firecracker that sounds like a shot-gun blast …they are used to scare bear away, though are illegal in the provincial parks).  Tom poked his head out the door to see what was going on and there was a tall plume of smoke rising from the area across the lake where the pay phone is located.  Just then four kids came driving in and said that there was a jeep on fire across the way.  Just then, fireworks blasted out of the site as well.  We called 911 and Conservation and then went over to the site to see if everyone was ok.  Here was a fellow, his jeep burning wildly, and he’s taking a video of it happening.  Is that what you would do?  We thought it was kind of weird.  We asked about the fireworks and he said that he was a climber and that he carries fireworks to set off whenever he reaches the peak of a mountain.  He said that he stopped the jeep because he thought he had a gas leak and when he stopped his jeep suddenly burst into flames.  We stayed until the fire department arrived and even then they had to pull the guy back from the jeep and make him stop filming.  There were loud bangs and pops as various parts of the jeep blew up and once the firemen sprayed water on the jeep, some bright blasts of magnesium fire exploded from the vehicle.   We came to find out the next morning that the guy had been reported as illegally off-roading up at Mt. Shark and that’s how his jeep’s gas tank was damaged.  Wonder if that will affect his insurance coverage???

Marc left on Thursday as well.  We were sad to see him go but the weather was not predicted to be any better the next few days so he decided to head south.  Hopefully he got to see Lindsey in Cranbrook on his way through.  Here’s a picture of him as the Grumpy Camper!

The weather last week was cold and rainy…the worst week of the summer as far as weather goes.  This week it has warmed up to where we are wearing shorts again and we’ve not had rain through the day since the weekend.  On Sunday night we went down to Lower Lakes Group Campsite for a staff bbq.  It was really nice to connect with some of the other campground managers and enjoy their company.   We saw a moose on the way home.  You’ll notice in the picture the whiteness of the left side paddle of his antlers.  That’s where he’s been rubbing the fuzz off them.   He was a nice looking fellow but I’m afraid my pictures aren’t that great as we sort of coasted by rather than stopping to take pictures.  Oh well, I only have about 800 moose pictures already!  (That’s not a lie…I transferred my pictures from my old computer to my new computer and I had over 6500 of them…whew…snap-happy or what!)  I can’t help it though…I just love the moose!  The picture above is one of my favourites taken at Mt. Engadine when we were here in 2011.  

Today was really quite nice and sunny.   We drove down to Boulton Creek to hand  in our registrations for the week, have showers and pick up supplies.  It is about a 40 minute drive and absolutely gorgeous.  We saw a beautiful big moose cross the road in front of us at one point but he disappeared into the bush before I could focus on him. 

We got to talk with our boss, Ian, today about the possibility of moving to a different campground.  There are several couples retiring and so at least two other campgrounds will be open for new management.  One is at Lower Lake, which has more sites but a much smaller footprint than ours, and the other is Eau Claire, on Hwy 40.  Lower Lake would be nice since its closer to showers, laundry, the store and other campgrounds.  We both do love Spray Lake, but it is the largest campsite, being five kilometers long, and is a lot more work than the others.  I guess we’ll have to weigh the pros and cons and see what happens.    As you can see in the picture above Spray Lake is a fabulously beautiful spot.

While Marc was here we stopped at the Nordic Center here in Canmore.  It is a building left over from the Winter Olympics when they were in Calgary.  Much of the cross country skiing and other winter sports actually took place up in the mountains around Spray Lake.  The Nordic Center now is used as a place for sporting events, summer camps, equipment rentals and as a meeting place for sports minded people.  I was impressed that they still had the flags of nations standing near the entry to the center…very impressive!

We are starting to plan our next adventure and are thinking of heading to the east coast and down to Florida, then across to New Orleans and on through Texas and the Gulf Coast to Arizona.  Sounds like a huge trip, but we’ll have time to do all of it.  Neither one of us have been as far as the east coast, though Tom did spend a few weeks in Mississippi when he was in the air force.   We might as well do our traveling now while we are still in good health…maybe we’ll get that wanderlust out of our systems eventually!

 

Too Close for Comfort…a Moose Story!

Too Close for Comfort…a Moose Story!

This was an interesting week…the boys, Nick and Jake, left early on Sunday morning.  It was sure fun to have them here for the past five weeks and I hope they enjoyed it as much as we did.  Tom and I were out doing a round through the campground later that day when we saw this bicyclist coming down the road…it turned out to be our son Marc who we had expected the next day.  It was really good to see him and we did a few fun things with him.  On Monday we went down to Canmore and got a bit of shopping done.  Tom had a chiropractor appointment and Marc and I shopped through all the bicycle and climbing stores.  He picked up a few maps and I got the best book ever about the Rocky Mountains.  The book tells everything from how the mountains were formed, how they are different from the American Rockies, about the plants, birds, animals and everything else found in the mountains.  It is an awesome book and I’m looking forward to using it to identify plants and flowers as well as some of the animal tracks and other things we find in the area.  I’ve already discovered that what I thought were trilliums are actually a type of low growing perennial dogwood.   I should have clued in about them because they have been around all summer and are sturdier than the trilliums we used to find in the forest when we were kids.

On Tuesday we really didn’t do too much…I think Marc just enjoyed the free time to sit by the fire and read his books and visit with us.  He’s got a stressful job and it was probably good for him to get away from things for a while.  Notice in the picture above that the weather stick is pointing down…rainy weather and cool temperatures!  Marc is sad not to get to go mountain biking!

 The weather really wasn’t too cooperative the past few days and so Marc didn’t get in the climbing and mountain biking that he wanted to.  Instead we took advantage of a rainy day and went to Banff for lunch.  We shopped around that very busy little town and then had lunch at Wild Bill’s Saloon…it was a fun place with good food.  There are so many people in Banff now and both Banff and Canmore are feeling the housing crunch.  There are tons of jobs, mostly serving and hotel jobs, in both towns but nowhere for the people to live.  Some of the kids are living out of tents and trying to hold down a job as well...it’s not easy for them and something really needs to happen.  A few apartment buildings would be a good idea but apparently it’s hard to build because of all the restrictions.  Somebody with a bit of money to spare could make a killing putting in a few small apartment buildings.  We had a good day in Banff and came home and cooked some steaks over the open fire for dinner…mmmm…Tom sure does a good job of that!

While we were waiting for dinner, Marc and I were talking and I noticed an animal across the lake at the day use area.  I thought at first it was a deer but it was too big and dark…a moose.  She wandered the shoreline a bit and then walked into the water.  I said to Marc, “wouldn’t it be cool to see her swim across the lake!”…not sooner had I said it than in she went.  We couldn’t tell right away if she was just going to swim along the shore for a bit or if she was coming across the lake but it didn’t take long for her to decide.  She headed across the lake just south of us a little ways.  I ran and got the camera and Marc got his as well and off we went to try to get pictures.   Marc stayed closer to camp and I walked down the beach until I was almost at campsite number two and waited for the moose.  It didn’t take her long to get across the lake…who knew they were such good swimmers!  I hid behind a large bush fairly close to where she came out of the water and started snapping pictures.  She looked around a bit and I’m sure she saw me…she walked toward me and stopped a couple times to get a better look.  I had to shut down the camera as the whirring noise of the automatic focus was attracting her attention.  I do know better than to get that close to a moose as they can be dangerous, but luckily this one decided to move off into the bush after staring me down for a couple minutes.  I guess she was just as scared of me as I was of her.   I did get some great pictures though.  Notice in the picture below that Marc is in the distance taking pictures of me taking pictures of the moose!

We don’t think it’s going to be too busy this weekend as the weather is supposed to be cool and wet for the next couple of days and not really getting much better till Sunday.  It would be nice to have a quiet weekend at Spray Lake, but who knows…every day is an adventure!

 

Grizzly Encounter …

Grizzly Encounter …

This past weekend Lindsey came up to visit.  She and I got up early one morning and took a little drive down to Mt. Engadine to see if we could see any moose.  As it happens, there were no moose in the meadow but on the way home we saw a nice little grizzly.  He looked about 2 years old and was busy eating berries by the side of the road.  He didn’t really care too much about his audience…two other cars and ours…but was very interested in the berries.   I’m not sure if you can see his claws clearly in the top picture, but you get a good view of the in the second picture.  I’m sure he could do some damage with them if he wanted to.  I was talking with an old fellow who was camping here the other day.  He said he’s been coming up here since the 1950’s and at that time there was no organized campground…you just found a level spot and camped there.  He said he had taken his family out on the lake fishing and had noticed a momma bear and cubs on shore.  He enjoyed seeing them but got quite a surprise when he got back to his trailer…the whole side of it had been ripped off.  The bear was after a big bucket of jam that the campers had brought with them and though it was packed away inside the trailer, the bear smelled it and wanted it…I guess nothing was going to stop it from having a nice taste of jam.  We’ve not heard of anything like that around now though.   I think a lot of it has to do with the amount of people in the area and the way the bears have been conditioned to seeing them and reacting to them.  In any event, the guy told a great story and Lindsey and I really loved seeing this young grizzly.

The flower of the week…it seems this is some sort of sweet clover but is much darker purple than I’ve seen before.  It smells beautiful!

Though the sun has not been shining as much as we’d like the last few days, there hasn’t been much wind either and the lake has been like glass.  It is so beautiful and so peaceful looking.  The boys have been out a couple times on the party barge or just swimming and they seem to be enjoying themselves.  Their dad, our friend Darrin is coming to get them this weekend…we’ll miss them for sure, but they are looking forward to seeing their friends and playing on their quads and dirt bikes so they will be happy to be home I’m sure.

Tom’s son, Marc, is coming to visit next week.  He’s an avid rock climber, mountain biker and hiker so I’m sure he’ll think he’s landed in paradise up here.  It will sure be nice to see him too.

Oso and I were out for a walk this morning and there in front of us was a momma grouse and her three babies.  The babies were not tiny…about half the size of momma, I’d say.  Boy, those birds are certainly not very smart.  The momma bird walked right toward us until she was about four feet away.  When Oso finally barked at her, she got all flustered and off she flew leaving her babies behind.  The babies scattered in all directions either running or flying away.  It was almost like she didn’t see us…maybe their eyesight is not very good.  I’ve heard of animals approaching humans to protect their babies, but this bird simply didn’t know we were there.  

Another grizzly picture…it was good of him to pose so I could get a nice profile shot of his head…pretty boy!

Fish, Flowers, Bears, Moose and Sheep…and of course, the LONG Weekend Craziness!

Fish, Flowers, Bears, Moose and Sheep…and of course, the LONG weekend craziness!

This morning Jake, Nick and I got up early to go moose hunting…with the camera of course.  We headed down to Mt. Engadine where the moose seem to like to gather and on the way there saw a nice grizzly grazing on berries on the side of the road.  We were driving our old dodge diesel though and it’s so noisy that I think it scared the bear.  The only picture I could get by the time I got my camera out was the tail end of the bear vanishing into the forest…at least we have proof we saw one!

At Mt Engadine we were lucky to see a moose cow and calf and then further up the road a single cow.  They are such amazing animals.  I can never get over how funny they look, but how beautiful it is to see them.  Here are a few pictures...notice the lovely eyebrow on the cow moose!

On the way home we saw a couple of deer, both white-tail and mule, as well as a snowshoe rabbit.  Then on the way down town this afternoon, we saw some big horned sheep at the top of the Canmore hill.  There was a baby all by itself who allowed us to take its portrait.  It was so sweet.  Amazing to see so many animals and the day is only half over!  

  

On that note, I'm happy to announce that Jake finally caught a fish.  We know it's not very big, but it is a fish and I'm sure he'll manufacture a story to go with it!!!

 Each week, we get about four pallets of wood.  There are about 60 bundles to each ballet and the bundles need to be stacked in the woodshed for us to sell.  The boys have been a great help with stacking wood and carrying it to and from the shed to the truck for us.  We’ll sure miss them when they go home next weekend.  Maybe they’ll be able to come back up here sometime and stay with us again or even get a job at Kananaskis.  Our boss was very impressed with them and said he’d sure like to have them working for him in a couple years.

 

The flowers around our campground are still going strong.  The Indian Paintbrush have been replaced by sweet clover and mountain bluebells.  The grasses are absolutely stunning right now…I don’t think I’ve ever seen such colour in them. 

This past weekend, of course, was the long weekend and we had our share of crazy people up camping.  There were four Irish boys who set up camp and seemed to be nice kids…until 18 of their friends showed up and proceeded to party on.  Boy the Irishmen can drink…we cleaned up on the recycling from them alone!!!  Anyway, we had to call conservation in to put these guys to bed on Saturday night and the next morning they were a pretty quiet bunch of kids…most of them were wearing sunglasses even though it wasn’t sunny… I’m sure they were all hungover! 

Another situation was a bit more stressful.  We had some return campers who are really good people…we’ve become friends with them and they usually bring us some moose meat or a bottle of wine when they come.  Anyway, they were happily camping in their site when a fellow and his girlfriend moved in across from them.  This guy is also a return camper and not one we want in the campground.  He’s a loud, obnoxious, drunkard and his girlfriend was absolutely tweeked out on drugs.  She kept twitching and talking to herself and not making sense.   Our friends were launching their canoe and had to bypass the camp where the crazy people were and the crazies started saying things like “I’m going to take that canoe home with me”…”I think I’ll steal your generator”…and so on.  Anyway, they reported this to us and said they were really uncomfortable with these people in camp.  We were too.  We called conservation and they called the police.  As soon as the police heard the description of the crazy people, they knew who they were.  Apparently, the crazy guy had just got out of jail that same morning and had found himself a woman and a vehicle by 9:30 a.m. and decided to come camping.  Anyway, to make a long story short, the police hauled them away and we didn’t have to deal with them again.  Hopefully they won’t be back.  There are so many good people and nice families who come camping, that we really need to get these other kind of people out of there so they don’t disrupt things too much.

Oso has been having a wonderful summer.  It looks like he’s taken over Tom’s chair even though Tom put an “occupied” tag on it to lay claim to the chair.  Oh well, I guess Oso can’t read that well.