The plan for the day was to hike the Observatory loop. It kind of made sense, having spied the Observatory from Hawthorne Mountain, to take the ground level walk around it….
( The Observatory being the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory ..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Radio_Astrophysical_Observatory )
We drove up to the observatory with my trusty Alltrails map already downloaded….
….only to find, once we arrived, the Observatory property…and the trailhead for this hike….are currently inaccessible to the public due to the covids.
We had noticed another trail entrance further up the road on our way home from the last hike……but with no data service to search for another trail….this time it was navigating without a route using Alltrails…….how bad could it be..!!! how long was the trail, was it steep and were there any aliens visiting ?
The parking area was jammed with vehicles……and the signs indicated that this was another birding spot. We only saw a couple of actual people head off up the trail, and though we thought it might be busier than our usual hikes….we were here, so, off we trekked around the edge of the cliff.
Found this weird creepy ….large stripped skeleton…not a cow…(not a person) maybe a bear we thought…(or an alien…!!!!).Further investigation once home leads me to believe it was a pig of some kind…possibly a feral pig ( they apparently have a problem with feral pigs…Alberta Saskechewan, BC )
It was a grayish, cold day and a lovely trail. Then it started going steeply downhill. (….not a good sign early in a hike….cos it means you have to climb back up…likely at the end). We decided to keep on going to see if we could make the loop around the hill/mountain…..
As we passed through the trees on the way down the hill….there were a number of neat piles of branches scattered through the area……further investigation determined that this was a conservation effort to combat an invading beetle infestation……it looked like preparation for a bunch of socially distanced bonfires…!!!!
At the point we were pretty sure we were NOT going back up that hill……we found another strange structure that looked like maybe some prospecting of old (or maybe I’m just over romanticizing…!!)
After another little bit of a climb we stumbled on a pool where we spotted a couple of beavers..(we think…!!). They were initially startled when we arrived…but soon got back to their beavery business…swimming around…diving for stuff…..generally mucking about.
We trekked across part of the same trail we followed up Hawthorne mountain…..and it looked (from the map) as if we could get all the way up the valley……..there were a couple of ropey (slightly scary..!!) bits in the middle where we were a little concerned we might have to back track.
…but we found our way back on to another well travelled path that lead us all the way back to observatory…this time in the valley below Hawthorne….and another unexpected abandoned object in the middle of nowhere…!!!
Good walk…nice day…!!!
No bears, or lions, or jackalopes….!!! ( Or aliens )
Next trip out…..The Fur Brigade trail…!!!!
Extra pix
OsteoPraxis on the road 
Mho what was that wire loop and fencing about ? I did not understand what it was doing there( birder trail 21). What was that observatory? Was it all just about birds?(birder trail 57-1) And lastly were they bullet holes in that old wreck of a car? I mean it conjures up old mobster movies …..I wouldn’t have been surprised if there were some bones in there too . Sometimes there are creepy things in your usually more serene communes with nature.Liked to see the “busy beavers”. Very Canadian eh 🙂
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The wire loop was just the end of the barbed wire where the fence had been built around the small lake ….a lot of these area are leased to farmers to graze cattle in the summer seasons and they destroy the shorelines of the lakes..so in the more sensitive areas they are fenced off…..It was included more as an arty shot by the photographer…LOL….
Also re bullet holes…….is seems fairly common for signs and things like this car to have been shot at by, presumably, hunters. The Peat Bog hike is a more well travelled area of forest…and consequently the suffer from a bit of dumping…..we came across a couple of stoves (regular kitchen stoves ) dumped…that were riddled with bullet holes…I opted not to include those pictures…I did not think they were particularly attractive when we are surrounded by so much beauty…..
But the car had been there a very long time…Scott reckoned it looked like something from the 50s……
I take your point about the Observatory it is the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory that we spied from one of the previous hikes….I updated the post to include a link.
…and yes …the beavers were super cool…..!!🍁
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good grief , I do not know where I got the idea in my head is was about birds…slightly more sophisticated set up now that I read your link. Thanks.
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