Week Twelve - Spray Lakes, 2015

Week Twelve – Spray Lake, 2015

We had a really busy long weekend…not a vacant site anywhere in the Spray Valley or in Peter Lougheed Park.  Overflow was overflowing and we had to turn a number of people away.  It seems more and more people are wanting to get away and this is where they come.  We need another couple of parks up here with about a dozen more campgrounds!

Our helpers for this summer are leaving today.  Bruce has to have shoulder surgery so they can’t stay the whole summer and Tracey starts back to work in a couple weeks.  It was sure good to have them here this year so we could have a few days off…we sure enjoyed the time we had.  Their little dog, Jax, sure did love to play with Oso.  He’s an energetic little guy and just doesn’t want to stop, so when Oso had enough, he’d just go sit out of Jax’s reach and take a break!

On Monday we decided to go for a drive.  We loaded the dog up and went over the Highwood Pass to one of the campgrounds over that way and then on to Longview on Hwy 22.  It was a gorgeous drive through the mountains and then coming out onto the rolling hills of the prairies was pretty too.  There are a lot of oil wells in the Longview area…a lot of really beautiful ranches as well.  On the way we saw some sheep (of course) and a couple of covered wagons that someone must have put together for some purpose.  Even though they were not original, with wooden wheels, etc., they were kind of cool.

We haven’t seen many moose this year so far but now with it being August and fall on the way, they will be out and about.  This big guy decided to walk through overflow one morning and Tom managed to snap a few pictures.  The moose hasn’t got too big a rack but he’s got a nice beard!

Another full moon has come and gone and of course I got another picture of it.  I’m still amazed by my camera sometimes.  If ever we need to see something really far in the distance, I just take a picture of it and then zoom in…it works better than binoculars! 

We had a bear in the campground the other day…a medium sized black bear.  He wasn’t really too interested in any of our campers…he walked along the campground road and then went up into the overflow area and then down onto what we call “the scary road” because Oso doesn’t like to go down there.  The scary road is a service road for Trans Alta so is gated off to traffic.  Oso gets a little nervous down that road because it is narrow with lots of bush on either side…guess he thinks there’s a bear there…and he’s right, there is!

It’s August already and our lake is still not full.  It’s still slowly coming up but we’ve never seen it this low at this time of year.  Guess the low snow pack, poor run off and dryer weather this year caused the lake to be this low.  Next year will be different.  Seems weather goes in cycles…we’ll get an El Nino one year with tons of snow and rain (like in 2012 when it flooded so badly) one year and then a dry year the next.  Our peace sign that some people built out beside the dam gate is almost under water now so the lake is still coming up.

One night we had three bicyclers from Tennessee who stayed with us.  They were so impressed with the mountains and the scenery…guess we get a little used to it and don’t appreciate it as much as we should.  Here’s a good picture to show  appreciation for the beauty of this area…Sparrowhawk Mountain with evening sun shining on it…love it!