Hike: Two O'clock Creek - Kananaskis, Alberta Canada

Quick Summary

Ramble on about the hike

2 O'clock creek is what I would probably consider to be my first 'hike'. It was a long time ago, I was probably about 14 years old. I had been in Edmonton at my uncle's place, my cousin invited me to join him and his friends on a long weekend camping trip.

We did not stay at the Two O'clock creek camp site as it was full. we ended up pulling off the Hwy, and staying on some 'wild' land next to the North Saskatchewan river. It was a very nice location. After setting up camp we were visited by either a Cop or a Parks Ranger, he let us know that we were on Indian land, and that it was considered a very rare and, fairly fragile ecosystem ( some sort of very rare mountain meadow, I forget the exact details). He told us that the Indians did not mind people staying there provided they did not use motor cycles, or all terrain vehicles, and did not leave a mess behind. So it was we had our 3 day camp set up.

I include this as a Hike that I went on, as one of the days were spend trekking along a trail to some water falls. Unfortunately it was quite a while ago (15 years now), so alot of the details are a bit fuzzy.

From our camp we walked upstream along the river, we knew that we would cross the trail upstream. I remember crossing the river on a walk bridge, I forget what type of bridge it was, but I do remember that it seemed fairly old at the time, and that I was not the only one in the group that was a bit nervous crossing it.

Once across the river, the trail eventually ran beside a fairly large creek (or small river). At points on the trail the creek flowed through a fairly narrow ravine, I remember at one point in particular there was we were on the ravine cliff face about 10 meters above the raging water. the side of the cliff had a overhang on both sides of the ravine, resulting in a small jump from one side to the other, about 2 feet. Funny how easy it is to step across two lines spaced 2 feet apart. With the raging water below, there was no way I could jump it.

We finished our trek at a set of water falls. They were quite nice.

Lessons Learned on this trip.

Sun screen is not for wimps... and if you are going bare foot, put sun screen on the top of your feet if you are going bare foot on a sunny day. For about a week after this trip, wearing just socks was pretty painful.