Week Fourteen – Spray Lake, 2015

It’s hard to believe we only have four more weeks up here.  We’ll be heading back to Castlegar after the 15^th of September, then on down to Abbotsford, then Spokane, Boise, and on to the south.  It’s a tough life to lead but someone has to do it…ha, ha.

Someone built an Inuksuk out on the dam.  It seems to be the thing to do around here.  The hiking trails all have stacked rocks somewhere along the way and I can even see a cairn or rocks on top of the big sister.  I guess it’s a way for people to say “I was here” and leave their mark.  Anyway, it’s kind of fun to see them…and sometimes build them.

This week a car pulled into the overflow parking area in the middle of the day…unusual unless they were going to try to picnic which isn’t allowed in the campground.  I walked over to see what they wanted and talked with the fellow for a few minutes.  He said they were looking for the “spiritual vortex” which is supposed to be somewhere in the campground.  (I should have known when he got out of the car with his red shirt, purple skirt and hiking boots…hmmmm!)  I asked him to describe the location and he described the trailhead perfectly so I sent him up that way.  There is a place where the trail opens up into a large rocky area that is quite pretty.  People have built Inuksuks and stacked rocks and built cairns all over the place there so I assume that’s what he was looking for.  I’ve been up there and have never felt the “vibrations” or any kind of spiritual sensations that are supposed to accompany a vortex.   To tell you the truth this whole place could be called a vortex because its tremendous beauty really does put you in awe of mother earth.

Another bird caught in the camera lens…this one is some kind of hawk flying low over the meadows near the lake where the ground squirrels live. 

Some fellows stopped at the trailhead across the lake the other morning.  I was out walking Oso and watched them doing something but couldn’t figure out what it was.  Then I heard the buzzing sound!  They had some of those remote control helicopters and were flying them around the mountainside.  These ones seemed to be quite fancy…I’ve seen the inexpensive ones sold at malls and even they are kind of impressive.  They have a tiny camera in them and will shoot photos of whatever they hover over.  Seems like a good hobby for some folks who are interested in that.

The real helicopters fly over here quite often too.  They are sight-seeing flights that take people either from Canmore or the Casino on Hwy 1 over the mountains or to Mt. Assiniboine.  There is a lodge at Mt. Assiniboine and many people fly in and hike out…some even fly up there and have their wedding or some other kind of celebration.  I’d love to take a sight-seeing flight over the mountains on a sunny day like today…maybe one day we’ll treat ourselves to it.  You can almost see someone looking out the back window in this picture.  When the floods happened in 2012, they had to fly all of the campers out of here in helicopters because the roads were blocked with slides.  All of the tour companies helped out and even the armed forces brought helicopters.  They took people, pets and one bag each…until that is one of the dogs pooped in the army helicopter…they the army wouldn’t take dogs any longer so the tour companies had to take them.  What wimps!

We went for a walk the other morning down toward Goat Pond where one of the trail crews is building bridges over swampy areas as part of the Trans Canada Trail that is going through here.  The fellow said he is having helicopters come in tomorrow morning to fly the bases he is building and some of the really heavy logs into their locations.  We have another trail crew camping here.  They are working on a section of the trail south of us on the other side of the lake.  They work 12 hour days moving rocks, cutting through brush and trees and building bridges too.  They come home, have something to eat and crash then head out again the next morning.

A young couple stopped by a few minutes ago to leave emergency contact information with us.  They are going to climb Old Goat Mountain and traverse the ridge down the lake to Mt. Nestor.  They said if their car is still there in the mornings to send out the troops.  So many hikers enjoy the mountain trails around here but sometimes we hear Search and Rescue on the radio coordinating searches for people who don’t make it back.  I’m sure these kids will be fine…they had the proper gear and emergency supplies with them and were smart enough to leave contact info just in case.

I’ll leave you with a beautiful picture of the day today.  A bank of clouds hung over the lake until just a little while ago and now it is clear, warm and sunny… a perfect day at Spray Lake! 

…oh, but there’s more…

Well, a lot can happen in a day…that young couple that stopped by to give me info about their hike didn’t come back on time.  They expected to be down the mountain by 8:00 p.m., 10:00 at the latest but the next morning their cars were still there.   He had written on the emergency contact info he gave me to call for help if they were not back by morning so I did.  Better safe than sorry!  Within an hour RCMP and Conservation Officers arrived.  Helicopters had been dispatched and the search was on.  They set up an emergency command center in the overflow parking lot near us.  It was really interesting to watch them work.  Later they called in search dogs and had ATV’s brought in so they could search down paths and roadways not accessible by truck.  By noon the hikers were still not back and I can tell you we were all pretty worried about them.  My powers of observation were tested when they asked me what they had been wearing (to see them better from the helicopter but also to judge their experience as hikers).  I told them the guy was wearing a rusty brown shirt and blue jeans and the girl was in light colours.  The search continued until about 4:30 in the afternoon when the hikers walked out of the bush on their own.  A cheer went up from all of the searchers and RCMP when they heard the news!  The hikers had gotten stuck (cliffed out) somewhere on the top of the mountain, stayed the night, had to backtrack quite a ways and then came down through the bush.  They were exhausted, hungry and thankful to be back safely…we were very happy to see them!  Oh, and my powers of observation…completely backwards…she was wearing a brown shirt with jeans and he was wearing light grey.  Oh well, I sort of got it right.

It’s a really good thing those kids made it down that day because the next was pretty ugly.  We had a huge rainstorm that lasted most of the day turning into snow by noon.  The snow didn’t stay very long but was kind of pretty while it lasted.  The rain stayed all day and into the evening.  Even with the weather being ridiculously cold and wet, we were almost full last night.

This poor little Indian paintbrush braved the snow…the last blossoms of summer!

Yesterday was snow and rain with temperatures below 0 centigrade…today is nice and sunny and supposed to get up to 19 degrees centigrade.  This is definitely Alberta weather!

I took Oso for a walk this morning and guess what I found…a nice little crop of raspberries.  They were a good size for wild berries and were sweet and juicy.  Now I know why the bears like them so much!

This is a bit longer blog than normal but it seems there was a lot happening in the last few days.  Hope you found it interesting!

Here’s a peek at Windtower with fresh snow…beautiful mountain!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week Thirteen - Spray Lake 2015

Week Thirteen – Spray Lake, 2015

 

It’s been another typical week at Spray Lake Campground.  We had an interesting weekend with a couple of odd campsites.  Last Thursday night someone came up and put tags on two sites, put a tent in one of them and a tent trailer in the other and then didn’t pay or register for them.  On the ticket that a person is supposed to put on the post in the campsite the fellow had left his name, the date they planned to leave and where he was to fill in the amount paid, he put N/A (not applicable).  Hmmmm…he must be very special if he doesn’t have to pay!  Anyway, I called the Conservation office to see if they could track down the owner through the license plate on the tent trailer.  That didn’t seem to work because the phone numbers attached to the license plate were out of order.  So…I let it go the first night because we were not full and I thought maybe the campers would come back but they didn’t.  The next night we were full…I called conservation and an officer came and confiscated the tent and told us to call as soon as the person arrived for the tent trailer.  I sold the sites to two families who were waiting in overflow.  At about 11:00 on Friday night three car-loads of kids arrive at the campground.  Tom stopped them at the gate since it was after hours and asked them where they were going…yes, it was the unregistered campers.  He called me on the walkie-talkie and told me they were arriving and I called the conservation officer again.  Tom said the kids looked like a rough bunch so I relayed that information to conservation.  He happened to be just across the lake dealing with some campers on the beach (a $300 fine for fire on beach and $150 for random camping!) and so he came over immediately.  I had just spoken with the kids who had arrived and could tell they had been drinking on their way up here.  I told them there was nothing I could do to hold their sites since we were full.  They were very angry about the whole situation but not so much with me as with their leader who had tagged the sites but didn’t pay for them.  I told conservation I’d seen beer cans in the car and he went and looked and actually caught one of them drinking in the car while he was talking with them…dumb kids!  Anyway, he evicted them so they wouldn’t go park in the overflow area and off they went with fines for failing to register and having open containers in the car.  After that little fiasco, the weekend went very nicely!

It’s been a bird week up here as far as animals go.  There are always loons on the lake but I did get some nice pictures of one of them.  As well a heron came and posed for me on the big rock right in front of our site.  He stood there for a while surveying the area for minnows…he probably ate his fill as the shores are thick with them!

I gave Oso a haircut this morning as the weather is nice and warm…high 70’s…perfect weather as far as I am concerned.  He sits really well for his haircut…such a good boy!  Afterwards he went and sat on his big pillow outside and was just about asleep when his nemesis, the chipmunk appeared.  That little rascal ran right up and over the pillow Oso was on.  Oso jumped up and chased him but the chipmunk ran into one of his hiding spots…Oso is definitely on high alert now!!

The other day we had four young guys come into the campground.  I stopped to sell them some firewood and started chatting with them.  They said they were going to hike the Big Sister Mountain right across from us the next morning.  I told them that I would take pictures of them at the top if they wanted.  They were quite excited about that and so I did.  Two of them were more experienced so though they all started together, those two got to the top first.  The other two made it about a half hour later.  It’s so cool to watch them up there and to see them finally make it to the top.   They stopped at our site when they got down and I showed them the pictures and promised to e-mail them.  They were pretty happy with the results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are hikers going up the mountain every day and though it’s a tough climb there are not often any problems.   That night however, I’d been watching some people coming down quite late.  They were still up above the tree-line at dark and then of course all we could see were their headlamps in the dark.  It’s unlikely anyone but very experience climbers could come down in the dark and experienced climbers wouldn’t be caught in that situation.  Anyway, we called conservation to report it but there is nothing they can do about it.  If the hikers were wise they would just find a place to hunker down for the night and stay there.  I think that’s what these folks did because other campers reported lights on the mountain till four a.m.  When we got up the next morning their car was gone so they’d obviously gotten down safely.

Tom and I celebrated our 10^th Wedding anniversary last Thursday…here’s a picture of my honey!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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!

 

 

 

 

 

 

week eleven - spray lake 2015

Week Eleven – Spray Lake, 2015

It’s a quiet morning here…Tom has gone down to Bolton Creek to turn in our money and get supplies.  He’ll shower while he’s down there as well.  I decided to stay here this morning and get a few things done around the house and campsite.  It seems even housework waits to be done while camping.

It’s only Wednesday morning and we are almost full.  The long weekend is approaching and people are coming up to the campground, putting a tent on a site, paying from Tuesday night until Monday ($156) so that they can have a campsite for the long weekend, then going back to work for the week.   If they put more than one tent on the site, they pay double, though most people will not do that until they come back on Friday night to actually stay in the campground.  It’s kind of an odd situation for us because when all of the campsites are taken but there are no people staying in them, it’s less work: less firewood to sell, less clean-up, fewer problems.

Speaking of problems…last Friday night we had some guys come in looking for a site.  They ended up in overflow because we were full but the possibility of a campsite the next day was good.  I talked to them several times about being quiet and making sure their camp was tidy.  At 11:00 p.m., I drove by again and reminded them.  They said they were going to go to bed and be really quiet because they wanted a good site the next day.  At 7:00 a.m. the next morning a fellow came knocking on my door.  He was furious because the young guys had been up all night long drinking and partying.  They were still going at it.  He filed a complaint and I gave him his money back with apologies for the situation, then I called conservation and explained what was going on.  Two conservation officers arrived within about an hour and proceeded to evict the young guys.  The guys had paid for two sites in overflow and so I think they probably each got a ticket for disturbing the peace, a ticket for leaving bear attractants out (recycling/garbage) and whatever else the officers could find to charge them with.  Those tickets added up to about $800.  The other part of being evicted is that you are not allowed in Alberta Parks campgrounds for three days, so their camping trip as far as Parks campgrounds go, was definitely over.  They were nice kids until they started drinking, then all their brain cells disappeared and they became dumb kids…funny how that happens!

We had a group of fishermen over the weekend as well.  One of the guys had caught a 20 pound lake trout last time he was here and was really looking forward to fishing the lake again.  They did well but no trophy fish this time.  It’s always nice when we get return campers…they are usually really good campers, enjoy the area and we enjoy having them here.

Our Camp Hosts will be leaving after the long weekend.  We’ll still get this Monday and Tuesday off, but they will leave on Wednesday so the rest of the summer we’ll be on our own again.  It was nice to have a few days off and be able to relax and catch up with our sleep.  That’s the hardest part of being up here…the need to get up and phone credit cards in by 9:00 a.m. and then stay up doing last rounds at 11:00 p.m.  That means we are usually up by 8:00 and in bed by midnight…makes for a long day for us old folks!

We haven’t really seen any animals around lately other than our campground deer.  Two bucks and two does.  The other day I was walking Oso and we came across the young buck pawing at the road trying to stir up some salt from the ground.  He saw us and held his ground.  We stood as still as possible, even Oso didn’t move or bark.  The buck came a little closer, curious about us.  A few steps closer and we still didn’t move…finally he got a bit too close for Oso who barked and the deer flew off into the forest.  Funny how they can take two steps into the trees and totally disappear from sight!  

The weather has been cool up here.  We’re back in long pants and jackets now, though our shorts and t-shirts are still laying on the dresser easily accessible for a change in the weather.  It’s been in the high teens and low twenties through the day and then down to single digits at night.  We’ve had plenty of rain, in fact it’s raining right now though the forecast is for sunshine later today.  Alberta weather can change quickly…we’ve experienced all four seasons in one day up here!

I didn’t have much in the way of photos to go with the blog this week so have just sprinkled some of my favourites from the past throughout.  Hope you enjoy them! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 10 Spray Lake 2015

Week Ten – Spray Lakes, 2015

Some people think that riding the Great Divide, 2775 miles, by bicycle is an amazing feat…well, not so much for this young fellow who came through the campground this week.  He wanted more of a challenge so decided to “ride the divide” on a unicycle…can you imagine that!  He had a big pack on his back and off he went.  People like this make me wonder why I don’t do anything as adventurous!  We had a young couple from France through the campground this week as well and they were beginning an 18 month trip on bicycle right through to Chile in South America…amazing!

We had a nice visit with Tom’s sister Lori and her husband Jim.  They arrived on Tuesday and we went downtown and wandered around a bit, then Wednesday they came up to the campground and we spent the day waiting for Tom’s smoked ribs to be done…mmm…they were sure good.  Lori and I went for a nice drive down to Mount Engadine and we were lucky enough to see about a dozen sheep including five babies at one of the day use areas, then a moose cow at Buller Pond and a Mama with two calves at Mount Engadine.  That was very cool but we were too far away to get pictures of them.  That was the first wildlife they’d seen on their trip other than deer so I was happy we found some animals.

Oso loves to go for walks on the dam now, especially since he’s discovered that the ground squirrels have taken up residence in the pipes that go under the dam…not sure what the pipes are there for but the squirrels like them and Oso likes the squirrels!  He bites and chews at the pipe thinking he can tear it apart to get at the squirrels…he doesn’t have much luck with that...it’s entertaining though for all involved!

There are pikas on the dam too…they are odd little animals  that look like a cross between a mouse with big ears and a bunny with a little cottontail…they make a beeping sound when they are startled and are really quite cute.  Oso would love to catch one of them but they are far too fast for him…they scoot over the rocks as quick as can be!

Since we now have days off, we’ve done a little bit of exploring.  We had to drive to Cochrane for groceries one day and went “the back way” through the Stoney Nakota reservation.  There we came across this little old church outside of a town called Morley.  The church was built by a preacher in 1875 and was dedicated to him on his death some years later.  The plaque we read said that he was travelling some 40 miles from the church and lost his way in a January snowstorm and died.  All around the church wildflowers were growing and Saskatoon berries were growing on large healthy bushes.  It looks like a good crop this year as the bushes were loaded.  We noticed that the buffalo berries in the park are ripening up and that there are far more of them than in past years as well, so the bears will have lots to feast on later this summer.  We’ve had a couple little black bears in the campground the last couple days so maybe they’ve already found some berries ripe enough to eat.

Dandelions are in full seed it seems.  I’m not sure what kind of dandelion this is but it sure is a pretty one.

All of the wildflowers are so pretty right now…these bluebells were looking good after a light rain as well.

One night we went for a walk across the dam and on our way back saw a couple of young guys building something on the mud flats just below the dam…when we got close we saw it was a huge peace sign…I’ll leave you with that now… “Peace out at Spray Lake!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week Nine

Week Nine – Spray Lake 2015

I was outside building a fire so I could make dinner while Tom had a nap this evening and in flew this beautiful mountain bluebird.  It was kind of an odd day today with rain showers here and there throughout the afternoon but it didn’t deter this guy from hopping from one tree to the next.  I think they’ve got a nest somewhere near because we see them fairly often.  They are so pretty!

 

 

 

 

 

The other day we noticed these four big horned sheep walking on the dam…two are older adults having full curls on their horns and two are young rams…it wasn’t long before they had reached the other side and wandered down to the lake for a drink.  One of our campers must have also seen them and raced across the dam where this woman got out and walked up as close as she could to them with her hand held out as if she was going to feed them.  She probably wasn’t more than 15 feet away from them.  I was ready to make the 911 call as soon as the ram butted her but he decided to just turn and walk away from her.  People don’t realize that even the sheep are wild animals…they are not farm animals or pets that can be toyed with.  Those four rams could easily have left her with serious injuries.  She was just plain lucky.  I did manage to get some good pictures of them from this side of the lake.   Tom said a couple of them had their horns clipped so they wouldn’t be attractive to hunters…that’s a good thing!

I washed the cover on the bed we found for Oso…he sure does like it.  Not sure how he can bend himself up in such odd positions but he seems comfortable enough on it!

We had a few rowdy campers this weekend.  One  group of three couples had arrived on Thursday night and been really good up until Saturday when they decided to play Beer Pong…it’s a game similar to ping pong and involves a lot of drinking if you don’t get your ping pong ball in the red solo cup…at least that’s how I think they play it.  Anyway these guys must have been at it all afternoon because when I went to quiet them down in the evening they were pretty sloshed.  Two of the guys were on the verge of getting violent with each other and so I moved one couple to another site.  I talked to the remaining couples like a mother with kids who were misbehaving…I told them they had to clean up their site because it was filthy, put their booze away and go to bed.  I think I took them by surprise a bit and they ended up doing what I told them.  Too bad they cant just come out here and enjoy hiking and biking and appreciate their beautiful surroundings!  It seems its always the booze that gets them in trouble!

We went to a bbq held for all the staff at the campgrounds and it was really nice to meet up with the new folks and reacquaint ourselves with the ones who were here last year.  Being up at Spray we don’t often get to visit with other campground managers and its always fun to compare stories with them.  Everyone has more or less the same kind of tales to tell but there are a few that really go above and beyond the normal activities in a campground…for instance, while we were there a radio call came through from one campground that a grizzly was chasing a sheep through the campsite…that must really have been something to see!

One of our camper/fishermen took this picture of a grizzly up the lake past the campground.  I thought it was such a beautiful shot with Mount Sparrowhawk in the background.  He used a cell phone camera so it is a bit grainy but still a nice shot.