Completed my third Spring season hike, again with a U of C hiking group, around 8 km through Grotto Canyon in Kananaskis. The trail entrance is near Exshaw, AB, off the Trans Canada Highway between Canmore and Calgary.
Pretty much the entire ‘trail‘ was large rocky terrain and slippery patches through the creek bed, so we really had to pay attention to where we were stepping during this excursion.
Saw some wildlife finally (unlike the other hikes I’ve been on!), lots of ground squirrels hanging around while we had lunch, and when we were just about back at the parking lot to finish our hike, we saw a bear! A black bear, apparently. It was a bit hard to see. By the time someone mentioned it and we all turned to look, it was already turning around and heading in the other direction. It showed itself again further down the trail where we had just come from. By then I had my camera out, but it was too far away to capture anything decent.
Some scenic shots of the canyon entrance that we hiked through:
Found the pictographs mentioned by the interpretive sign at the parking lot, these were made between 500-1000 years ago by native people. How can anyone look at these and not think of the carvings made by The First Men and Children of the Forest at Dragonstone??!! Yes, that is a Game of Thrones reference 🙂
Various areas we hiked through, some of these spots were a bit unnerving, in that the rock faces on both sides were very tall and with walking in between them all I could think was, ‘What if there’s a rock slide?‘ There definitely would have been no escape!
Had some ground squirrel visitors during our lunch break, not sure if it’s the smell of food or the opening of said food packages that attracts them! There were also lots of human-made rock formations throughout the canyon:
A shot of the the creek bed and the slippery rocky terrain we zig zagged across, saw some climbers too:
My bear photo below, you can’t even tell it’s a bear! I tried to zoom in with my camera, but it was still too far away to make out. It’s that light brown-looking blob to the bottom right of the right side electrical pole:
All in all, this was probably one of the more scenic trails I’ve been on, beautiful, although a bit challenging with the rocky terrain. But fun!
