mountain climbing!

Week Eighteen - Spray Lake 2015

Week Eighteen – Spray Lake, 2015

Well, we are nearing the end of our summer here at Spray Lake.  We talked with the boss the today and he’d sure like us to come back next year.  I guess we’ll wait and see what happens.  We both enjoy it here and we don’t have much else on the go so it might just work out. 

We had a few more inches of snow yesterday and I thought it might be fun to go down to Mt. Engadine and see if the moose like the snow or not.  Turns out they do!  I had a fabulous morning taking pictures of a nice big bull and then a cow and two calves.  Notice in the picture how pink the bull’s antlers are.  He’s just got rid of his velvet and the antlers look kind of raw.  Over the next few months they will toughen up and get lighter too.  He was such a beautiful big guy…healthy and strong looking.  I couldn’t help but snap a ton of pictures of him.  I love how the snow is clinging to his antlers and a bit on his nose.  So beautiful!

 

There were four other people there taking pictures of the moose…all with fancy big cameras with lenses a mile long.  I’m sure they got some wonderful pictures.  I’d love to take a course in photography to learn more about the cameras and how to use the professional models.  Until then, I’m very happy with my point and shoot.

After the bull wandered into the forest, I decided to drive back up the road a ways.  I hadn’t gone far when I saw this cow and two calves.  They were amazing.  The calves are twins though the last one in the line-up below is larger than the other.  I suspect he’s a little bull and the more dainty one is a female.  So incredibly cute!

I watched them for a long time and followed them up the road a ways.  They didn’t seem to mind people watching them and taking their pictures.  They stopped to eat here and there and at one point the calves even started to nurse.  Wow, was I excited to get a picture of that.  Not something that’s often seen in the wild.  I just can’t seem to get enough of the moose…I want to go back every morning and take more pictures.  These calves were so adorable…well for a moose anyway!

Our snow is gone now…it only lasted a couple of days.  Alberta weather is so weird.  It was 28 degrees centigrade on the weekend, then down to freezing with snow on Tuesday.  Today it’s cold and clear but we are supposed to be back up to around 22 c by the weekend again.  Don’t know whether to wear my shorts or my snow suit!

I love this picture of the moose and babies munching on leaves.  You can only see the ears of one calf and the back of the other but it’s a nice shot of mama!  On the way back from seeing the moose the other day I drove across the dam and there was a lovely big raven sitting on some of the rocks people piled up.  Lots of people are building inukshuks now or piling rocks to leave their mark…kind of fun for them. 

As I drove into our site I noticed a couple of deer in the overflow area…boy was it my morning for animals!  They were mule deer…a doe with an almost grown fawn.  We do get some white-tail deer up here as well but for the most part they are mulies.  I kind of thought the picture of the deer would make a nice Christmas card if they hadn’t been hiding behind that bush…oh well.

When we talked with the boss today I showed him some of my photos.  He asked me if I would make some of them into postcards and sell them in the store down in Bolton Creek.  That might be a good project for me for the winter…making cards and postcards.  He said he’s tried to find some with “Kananaskis” on them but most of the postcards say “Banff” or “Canmore” …might just be a good little enterprise for me!

It seems that mushrooms are popping up all over the place right now.   These shaggy manes are all over the place right now.  Supposed to be very good eating!

I’ll leave you with some of the fall colours along the campground road…amazingly beautiful when the sun shines!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week Seventeen - Spray Lake, 2015

Week Seventeen – Spray Lake, 2015

 

A chilly week at Spray Lake!  I had hoped to show you some lovely autumn pictures in this blog but winter came early!  We had snow on Saturday and that chased a lot of long-weekend campers away.  On Sunday night we only had a handful left, most of them in trailers or campers.  Only one couple stayed in their tent…hearty folks!  The snow lasted into the next day but it was more sleet/snow mix by then.  By Tuesday it had pretty well gone except for what will now stay up higher on the mountains.  There are several Inukshuks along the dam road now…I liked the one someone else had built so figured I could build a few myself.  Tom got into it too so he built a couple too.  Oso was a bit sad that there were only “people” Inukshuks so we built a dog out of stone.  First thing he did was went and peed on it!  That’s pretty typical I guess!  Lots of people have stopped to take pictures of the Inukshuks…guess it’s kind of fun to see them and they do look cool with the lake and mountains behind them.

I found this little snowman on the picnic table at the day use across the lake when I took Oso for a walk.  He’s pretty cute and deserving of having his picture taken.

We also saw these two mergansers fishing along the shore.  They didn’t seem to mind the cold water at all.  There are plenty of tiny minnows in the lake so the birds are quite well fed.

 

 

 

There was a family from France in the campground the other night and they wanted to see moose so I’d told them to go down to Engadine early in the morning and watch for them.  Talking with them made me want to go see the moose too so I got up early this morning and off I went.  I was in luck and saw two nice big bulls.  One was out in the meadow near the mud hole licking at the ground.  He was a huge bull but had small antlers so must have been fairly young.  The other was big as well but lay in the grass and never got up so I couldn’t see if he measured up to the first one.  He did have a nice big rack on him so was probably an older moose.  You’ll notice the picture of him shows the velvet on his antlers is coming off.  This time of year they are rubbing up against anything they can to work the velvet off. I talked with a conservation officer last night and he said there was a moose attacking a flexible plastic post at Engadine the other day.  Every time the moose pushed the post over, it would snap back up and the moose would attack it again.  That would have been fun to watch!  Oh, I do love the moose!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week Fifteen and Sixteen - Spray Lake, 2015

Week Fifteen – Spray Lake, 2015

Well…you certainly don’t have to go to Tennessee to see the Great Smokey Mountains…they are right here in Kananaskis Country, Alberta!  On Monday morning we woke up to what I thought was fog at first, but turned out to be smoke in the air.  It is still thick and heavy here and down in Canmore as well.  People came from as far away as Sundry and Lethbridge and said they drove through smoke all the way.  We’ve heard that it is coming from Washington State, but I’ve also seen online that there are fires near Grand Forks and Christina Lake.  Sure could do with a good rain to drench the forests throughout the Pacific Northwest!

It’s been a pretty quiet week after all the excitement of the search and rescue last week.  I think the smoke might be keeping some people at home because it sure has been quiet in the campground.  We’ve only had a dozen or so campers each night this week and we would usually be at least half full (25 campers).  We’ve managed to keep busy around our site and are planning our trip south for the winter.  We still don’t know exactly which way we’ll go but have been thinking of taking a couple weeks to go to Mexico once we get to Tucson.  Mexico is always fun!  Here’s a few pictures from our last trip there.  That’s me in a wrestling mask (popular souvenirs) and the other picture is one that Tom took of an angel statue on the boardwalk in Puerto Vallarta…he got her holding the sun in her arms…pretty good shot!  Yup….sunset in Mexico…makes me want to go for a visit!

Short blog…more next week!

Week Sixteen – Spray Lake, 2015

I mentioned in my Week Fifteen posting about the smoke in this area…it’s pretty well cleared off now and hopefully the fires in Washington and BC are well under control.  We’ve had a few rainy days so with any luck the areas with the fires have too.  Here’s a picture of our normally crystal clear view across the lake…you can hardly see the mountains!  I think Canmore and Calgary were just as bad.

Gravel trucks have been racing up and down the road across the lake.  The road needs constant maintenance and there are two graders that work the stretch from Canmore to Kananaskis every day.  For the last week the trucks have been hauling fresh gravel for the graders.  Tom and I were just talking about how the trucks go speed way past the limit to get as many loads hauled as possible and the dust they kick up is horrible.  One day last week we saw emergency vehicles racing up toward the boat launch across the lake and heard on the radio that there had been an accident.  A pick-up truck had pulled out from behind a car and had ran straight into a dump truck.   We heard the driver was hurt badly but that the two kids in back came out with only scratches.  The driver couldn’t see because of the dust.

We saw this grouse while out on a walk… they are such dumb birds…you can almost walk up and touch them before they think to fly away!

We had a company picnic on Sunday night.   Almost everyone showed up and a real treat was seeing a couple of people who retired last year but came back for the picnic.  The food was great, the people were fun to be with and everyone had a good time.  It’s so nice to spend a bit of time with other campground managers and hear their stories and tell a few of our own.

On the way home that night we came across this cow moose munching grass on the side of the road…she could care less about us stopped to take pictures and just kept on eating.  Today when Tom went down to Boulton he saw a cow and calf.  They are sure big and healthy looking this time of year!

This white-tailed buck has been hanging around our site for a while now.  Tom caught him with this funny look on his face…almost cartoonish.  He really is a beautiful animal and again so healthy looking.

My passport expires this coming January but since we plan to head down to the states in the fall, I thought I’d best get it ordered so I’ll have it before we leave.  I drove into Calgary yesterday and did that at the passport office there…should only take a couple weeks to get it.  After that I went shopping a bit and then went to see Jamie and took him out for dinner.  He’s doing well and we really had a good visit.

It’s been slow in the campground lately.  The weather has turned cool…highs around 7c and lows -2c.  We could very well have snow on the ground one morning when we wake up.  Bicyclers are still going through on a daily basis trying to beat the weather as they head south to Mexico.  They say a person should begin their trip mid-August at the latest if they want to avoid snow here and through Colorado which I think are the highest points along the divide trail.  There were four Dutch bicyclers through the other day.  They started their journey two years ago in Brazil and are heading to Jasper and then down to Vancouver where they’ll catch a plane back to Holland.  I can’t imagine being on a bike for two years…I also wonder how easy it would be to get back to everyday life after an adventure like that.   

Most of the wildflowers have now died off but the grasses are still so beautiful.    Here’s a nice shot of some of them.  The grass is tall…almost up to my hips in some spots.  Oso and I go for walks through it and he gets totally lost in it sometimes but that doesn’t stop him from sniffing out ground squirrels.  I think he still dreams about catching one, but chances of that are pretty slim!