Day 33 Cypress Hills

The plan today was to visit Fort Walsh, a National Historic Site, dedicated to sharing the story of the Northwest Mounted Police (later to become the RCMP). Imagine our surprise to discover it is closed on Sunday and Monday! What kind of tourist attraction/Parks Canada site is closed on a weekend day? Fort Walsh apparently is the answer. Not much point in complaining, we should have checked! So, another day to explore the campground here…and found Pickleball Courts! We went out early morning before the day became too hot and enjoyed getting back in the game. We had just started playing when David was diagnosed so after a two-year break (I played once, so not sure that counts), we are pretty rusty. David says, “We are unlikely to make the Olympic team, but it felt good to get back on the court.” Jonathan and Jenna destroyed us in play, but we had fun until the heat of the day sent us looking for cool shade.

I caught the ball in mid-air!

After lunch we decided we really were not going to get terribly lost here, so without aid of the useless maps we headed for the woods to wander through the warren of trails and discovered that the hiking here is rather awesome, just not well promoted. The trails are well groomed, with interesting self-guided plaques, and plenty of wildlife to keep things interesting! It really is quite lovely and we spent the afternoon, into the evening enjoying the surrounding forest. 

Bee Balm 

Look carefully! Can you find the deer? There were many that would just freeze waiting for us to pass.

Beautiful Trails

I heard the loudest song coming from this birch tree. I figured out it was a Yellow Bellied Sapsucker. Such a pretty bird, but try as I might I couldn't see him. The song was so clear that seemed impossible. They hiked on and left me behind. Shortly I was rewarded for my patience when I discovered it was "the tree" that was producing the sound. There was a nest inside the tree and Poppa was out hunting. He would come back regularly with a beak full of insects dipped in sap, for added nutrition, to feed his little noisy family in the hole in the tree. I watched for so long that by the time I caught up with the others, they thought I had gotten lost! Look on the birch on the right and you can see him!

Here he is actually feeding them.

Another shot of him at the nest.

Weird! There was paint splattered along the trail in a couple of places, then we came upon this! Not sure if it was someone trying to be funny with the paint spill, or if was part of a haunted walk they do here at night 😕

The lodgepole pines make a perfect setting for a tree trekking route. Looked very cool.

Despite the wildfires here in the west, the risk is listed as moderate in this campground and we are allowed to enjoy a small campfire - so we did!