Our Last Day in Canada's K-Country

It's our last day of camping at the Tales and Trails city campground in Longview, Alberta. This little town really doesn't have anything to entertain us, so we're making the drive to the nearby mountains once again. We love our time in the Canadian Rockies!

We are driving to Highwood Pass on highway 40. At 2205 meters (that's 7239 feet), this is the highest paved pass in Canada. From what we have seen so far, it's much easier to drive through the Canadian mountains when compared to the steep passes in the Colorado Rockies.

We also saw several signs warning us to watch for the Rocky Mountain sheep that like to hang out near this highway. We even saw them right in the middle of the road, and right beside the sign. How convenient!

Other times it took a sharp eye to see them scrambling up the steep gray rock walls beside the road. These babies are just now getting the feel for rock scrambling on these walls that are almost ninety degrees. We're talking angles, not temperature degrees. We're expecting the high temperature to be a very pleasant 65 degrees today.

When this little guy finally made it to the bottom, he had worked up quite an appetite. He immediately found Mom for a snack.

We are back in K Country (that's short for Kananaski Country) for some hiking. After seeing almost no one yesterday, we are surprised to see that the parking lot is almost full at the Ptarmigan Cirque trail head. It must be that everyone else knows how good a hike this is. Because it was chilly this morning, we started the hike with our jackets zipped up and hoods on. We love hiking in July with these cool temperatures!

After heading uphill in the forest, we popped out into a meadow filled with wildflowers. Mountains in the background and flowers in the foreground make for one of Denisa's favorite pictures.

After we hiked up to high elevation, our trail led us straight into the mountains.

This is a cirque trail, so we will actually circle this bowl of mountains today. We are blessed to wander another of God's wonders!

That circle will take us right beside patches of snow. This is the first snow we've been in this summer. But we guess that isn't that unusual for most people.

We see evidence that the snow is melting, as there is a steady flow of water coming down from the mountains around us.

The weather just can't make up its mind this morning. At times we have blue skies,

and then we will have a little shower. Either way, we are glad to have our jackets on. At times we can see a rain shower that obscures our view of the mountains around us, but we never did get wet.

Because this meadow is covered by snow most of the year, we found the perfect conditions for glacier lilies.

This is the first time we have seen so many of these delicate yellow lilies.

This trail is only 2.7 miles long (but has 1164 feet in elevation gain) We extended it by hiking further up the scree field at the end of the cirque. That's tough hiking with the elevation change and the loose rock.

We made another stop among the wildflowers on our way back to the car. Each one of these delicate blue flowers is smaller around than a pencil, with pink and yellow centers when we look this closely.

A fellow hiker offered to take a picture of the two of us together. He told us that he thought it should be on the cover of the Canadian hiker magazine. Or maybe it will just be on our blog.

After coasting back down the steep hike to the trail head, we walked on the Prairie Trail's board walk. This is where bus loads walk for an easy spin on an even surface. But they miss all the beautiful mountain tops that we just experienced on the Ptarmigan Cirque!

We also had time to check out a couple other trails here on Highway 40 in K Country. The ranger had mentioned a hike up this canyon, so we started up the narrow canyon with tall rock walls on both sides.

Water formed this canyon, and this creek still makes hiking it more complicated. When Mark found a couple springy logs over the water, he walked right to the other side. Denisa is not so good at springy log crossings, so she took the pictures.

The Cat Creek Trail had also been recommended, and it ends in a nice waterfall. So of course we headed straight up that trail as well.

The falls at the end are a nice destination, and Mark scrambled to the end for a photo opportunity.

But then he spotted a rock crevice with a rope, and he just had to see if it would lead to the top of the waterfall.

Yes, that rope helped him to get up that crevice and around the wall to sit right beside the waterfall. If you look very carefully, you can see him in the center of the picture sitting beside the falls.

Here's a zoomed-in shot just to prove that he made it all the way to the top of the falls.

We were ready to leave when another group arrived at the waterfall. We would have left them to enjoy the views by themselves, but we were invited to stay. This guy has a part-time job juggling poi. These Asian balls-on-a-string can be plastic, or have neon lights inside. But the ones he is using today are first soaked in fuel.

Then he lights them on fire and juggles while his daughter films. He will post his video on facebook to drum up business for his part-time job. In the meantime, we post them here in appreciation for him inviting us to stay for our own personal show.

It was a pleasant hike and a beautiful afternoon. Several days ago  when we crossed the border into Canada, we noticed that Alberta's welcome sign touted it as "Rose Country." We have certainly seen many wild roses since then.

Besides wild roses, our trail has been lined with one of our favorite trees--aspen. We're wondering what causes this unusual pattern on the back of many of the aspen leaves.

It was a great day of hiking in the Rockies, and we had yet another visit from the sheep that live in these mountains. They blend in well with the color of the rocky ledges, so our best way to find them is to listen for the little rocks falling when they leap from ledge to ledge high above us.

We've had a great visit in Kananaski Country, but it's time to head our wheels further north, as we have visitors coming. For now, we'll leave you with another picture of the Rocky Mountain sheep that seem to be everywhere here in K-Country!