Good day Hive!
As I keep going back in time from my Kananaskis trip, This is the day the truck broke down. We were meeting a friend in Calgary at the other end of the park to do some hiking and decided to go for a bite to eat first. As soon as we left all the bells and whistles started going off, luckily we weren't in the mountains yet and neither was our friend. We slowly made it back to Turner Valley and reached our friend by phone just at the right time at the turn off to go either to our anticipated location, Upper Lake in Peter Lougheed Provincial park or Turner Valley and it's about the same distance either way so he just came to meet us in town instead. Because of that we decided to stay closer to town to explore the near-by parks in the foothills. Apparently there was mean looking clouds over our desired destination anyway, we didn't miss anything there, it did indeed storm.
We ended up in Blue Rock Wildland Provincial Park, hoping to get a hike to a waterfall. We started on the trail and followed along the river than it just disappeared. We found an other... Lets go with...Less traveled trail. We climbed and climbed and suddenly the trail disappeared again in tall grass and we just kept going until we got to a field. After a quick inspection, we determined there definitely was some recent bear and elk activity and a large patch of flattened grass like something large had been laying there recently. We kept going across the field to the tree line to see if the trail picked back up but got halted by a canyon and what appeared to be a bear den in the distance. None of us wanted to become a bear snack, we decided it was best to make our way back to the trail. The air was thick, we could tell the rain was getting closer and getting caught in the rain bushwhacking would really suck when it's already cool, no more than 10 degrees C. I was still hurting from a long hike bushwhacking just a few days before plus I have a bad knee that only gives me trouble when there is a lot of humidity in the air, not quite interested in anything too hard.
This year brought on a late spring and with higher than average snowfall, there was still knee deep snow banks in June in higher altitudes and the rivers are flowing heavy from the late melt washing out all the trails near river and making un-bridged river crossing impossible to cross on foot. Given the trail/non-trail was just pissing us off more than anything, we were happy to get back to the river bank. On our way down is when we noticed the trail wash-out, not so good for hiking that day and a lot of bitter disappointments for all of us, seems like the day just kept poo-pooing our plans. We felt the rain for the last part of the trail and settled with, maybe it's just not our day for hiking, we got in the car and just drove in deeper into the mountains on another less traveled logging road into Sheep Valley Provincial Park just to explore.
Bam! There it was, the highlight of our day...Finally! The universe kept blocking us because it was trying to bump us into something incredible. We came across a herd of Big Horn Sheep aka Ram with almost 20 heads counted of all sizes, babes, mommas, yearlings and some of the biggest horns we have seen yet...All just chillin on the hill about 20 to 30 feet from us. Of course we stopped and enjoyed the show, with my 300 mm lens, all I had to do is roll down the window and I had clear shots, this was nature gold. They didn't mind our presence and carried on their charades, given once again, the late spring and the fact that it was the second day the road was open, the sheep were still in the valley because there isn't any food yet higher up in the mountains.
@silvergingerman with iphone8.The dominant male started to harass other males and trying to invite them to a challenge in a headbutting contest. They generally pick another male with similar sized horns. In the fall, it's a process that can take up to 20 hours and can get quite aggressive where they run at each other at up to 20 miles per hour and lock horns. We didn't quite get that show, it seemed on much more friendlier terms and they waited for the other's approval before going, maybe they also play that way because they were all doing it to each other with just one headbutt then moving on. We watched for at least an hour, maybe more, as the others were battling it out, an opportunist stepped in and went strait for the prize.
@silvergingerman.Bighorn sheep are the wild relatives to farm sheep and much bigger in size with the males weighting as much as 300 lbs. Each section of horns equals to 1 year of growth and can weight up to 30 lbs, that's the general method of age identification. They are born being able to climb sharp cliffs from the first day to get away from predators like bears or badgers and will stay with their mothers until they are 4 to 6 months old and the male lambs will join the male herd (the males and females generally stay in separate herds for most of the year). The lambs born early spring are more likely to survive into adulthood compared to their later born counterparts.
For a day that started off bad, it turned out really well, we were dedicated to just watching the amazing show nature just gave us for the rest of the afternoon or until they left. After some time, the moved into the road and blocked it completely, there wasn't much traffic anyway being on a logging road. Of course one douchebag came along in a rush and got real close with a small car and wouldn't stop honking at them. The sheep were having none of it, 3 of them got on their hind legs and started a mock charge at the vehicle , guy got the message and backed away a little, they they did another mock charge. What a show!
To top it all off, we saw a dear and her little bambi on the way out of the park, the little one was like a small dog on stilts, just a few days old... Too cute. We may not have seen nice trails or scenery but the wildlife was a great payoff in the end but no it was time to get back to reality and asses the broken truck and how much will it cost? Good thing it turned out to be something stupid and easily fixable but it's still an old girl and problems will start adding up from here on out, this may have been her last trip to the Rockies with us.
All images shot with Nikon D7000 and Nikor 70-300 mm lens.
Cheers my friends! X馃悶X