Week Four

Week Four – Spray Lakes

Another interesting and busy week at Spray Lake Campground!  This past weekend all of our campsites were full.  We had a pretty good bunch of campers except for one group.  I thought they would turn out ok because they had three little girls, but I was wrong.  We caught them using a BB gun in the campground when they had already been told it was illegal in a provincial park, they were messy and noisy and continually used foul language.   I felt sorry for the kids with parents like that!  We called Conservation and an officer came out and confiscated the gun, and wrote them a ticket for the rest of it…some people don’t learn no matter how many chances you give them.

Another incident across the lake involving guns.  A group of six guys had set up to fish and relax at the day use area across the lake from our site.  Tom and I were sitting at our site watching everyone across the lake with our binoculars.  I looked at the six guys and darned if it didn’t look like they were shooting.  I drove over for a better look and to take some pictures then called conservation.  The guns they were using were air-soft but looked amazingly real.  Not a good idea to shoot them in a provincial park where there are other families and fishermen on the beach with you.  They ended up getting fines and having their guns confiscated as well.  Hopefully they will learn.

On Monday afternoon, Tom went out to clean up a few sites and I was cleaning house.  When he came back he yelled at me to get my camera and come with him.  We drove out around “windy point” and there in the middle of the lake was a big river-runner boat stuck up on a little island.  It must have come away from the boat launch and not seen the island and ended up on top of it.  Someone must have called 911 because both RCMP and Conservation responded.  We watched for a while and then came back home.  It took them most of the day to finally get the boat back into the water.  Always something interesting going on here.

We’ve seen so many different birds up here…these ravens are so big and lovely.  There are eagles, osprey, all kinds of water birds, plus we’ve seen mountain bluebirds, whisky-jacks, robins, sparrows and hummingbirds.  There are many more but I don’t know their names.  I love to listen to them though…some have such distinct songs.

Tom and I decided it was time to get away for a little while so we took a day trip to Lake Louise.  It was really beautiful there, but oh so crowded (and this was a Tuesday!).  So many international tourists come to see the area…it really is lovely though.  We walked through the chateau as well...it was pretty fancy but a bit out of our price range!  We had a lady from Arizona take our picture in front of the lake.  While we were at Lake Louise we went into a shop and got an ice-cream cone…they were selling cases of pop there as well.  A dozen coke cost $18.95 plus tax and bottle deposit…WOW!!!  We saw a grizzly bear on the way out of the area but couldn’t get pictures of it.  One day I’ll find my grizzly and get some great pictures…I just need to be patient.  We did see four big horned sheep and managed to get some decent pictures of them.  They are almost always on the Canmore hill so we see them quite often.  Even so, it’s always kind of exciting to see any kind of animal in the wild.

One afternoon we decided to take a walk down to Goat Pond.  The pond is about three kilometers away from us so not really that far.  We got almost there and it got too marshy to go any farther, but I did get some nice pictures of some of the flowers and butterflies.  A couple days after our walk a fellow stopped by who has the contract to build part of the Trans-Canada Trail which will go north to south from Banff to the US border.  I was surprised they weren’t just fixing up the Great Divide Trail as it runs almost parallel but I guess this trail is totally separate from that one.  Anyway, the contractor said that for the most part they will be building bridges over the wet spots so hikers and bikers can get through.  As you can see new bridges are definitely needed!

Oso loved the walk…he got incredibly dirty and went in every pond, stream and mud hole we passed.  When we got home he had a bath and got a haircut which were both very much needed!

I think that the Great Divide bicycle race is happening this weekend.  Last night I met a fellow named Billy Rice who is called the yo-yo man because he’s ridden his bike back and forth to Mexico so many times.  He’s got a website and you can follow his adventures on facebook.  He was riding up from Mexico to meet his daughter in Banff and then they were going to ride a tandum bike back to Mexico in the race this weekend.  He said he’s done the 2500 miles in 19 days…when I commented that he must hold the record, he said “No, the record is 14 days and 10 hours”.  More power to them I say!  Will be fun to watch for them this weekend as the bikers will come right through the campground.

We saw a couple of elk the other day by the roadside.  They disappeared into the bushes pretty quickly though.  It’s funny, they were standing about 200 meters from his little black bear that was also on the side of the road…neither seemed bothered by the other’s presence. 

I’ll leave you with a couple more pictures of Lake Louise…this is the Chateau and the Victoria Glacier…both are pretty grand!