Day 6 Report

Before we jump into Day 6, we’d like to note that the Day 4 & 5 Report posted last night has been updated with photos, so please check it out.

The drafting of this update began in the Cretaceous Cafe, located at Alberta’s Dinosaur Provincial Park, our main highlight for Day 6 (Aug 1), which began in Swift Current, SK, and will end in Brooks, AB.

The drive here further reinforced my comments about the lies that everyone seems to perpetuate about the prairies. The lie is that they are flat. They’re not. The further west we went in SK, the more rolling the terrain became, to the point that I would argue it’s hillier than large swaths of Ontario. Photos below to make our case. Perhaps, the illusion of flatness, or that “big sky” impression is the marked absence of trees. In any event, it ain’t flat!

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As we drove the temps fluctuated a lot. We expected to see 33 celsius in the park, but at 6PM, it’s currently 34C. Needless to say, this is hotter than our beloved, fair-skinned Trish was built for. We did a couple of short hikes that underscored the other challenge: There. Is. No. Shade. In short, this is where battle goats are sent to die in dishonour. Here’s a quick vid of our walk to the top of the Coolee Viewpoint Trail, as well as some photos.

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Clearly, there are challenges, but this place is as spectacular as it is alien. The sandstone is grippy, like sandpaper, which also makes it soft and prone to erosion, which is why the Badlands exist in the first place. One particular grasshopper flapping its wings makes a surprisingly loud noise. The birds… let me tell you about the birds. We came back to the car after checking out the first scenic overlook at the park entrance to find this moderate sized bird picking the dead insect carcasses off the car’s bumper cover! In addition, one of the residents species, has wings that make this loud growl whenever they pull a certain move in flight. Oh, and there are rattle snakes.

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We ended the day with a sunset tour that took a small group into the park’s preservation areas where active fossil discoveries are still happening. We got to see some special terrain as the sun went down, all the makings for some fantastic photos. In reality, it was tough to figure out how to compose for such a massive and foreign landscape. The images are a wor in progress, but some examples are below.

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That’s it for today. Time for bed. Tomorrow, we drive to Calgary.