April 5th. Paradise with the kid…!!!

With a couple of decent weather days and the weather looking unpleasant in the long range, the Alltrails search threw up some choices…Bronagh had a day off….so Anne and Sandy Cross conservation area on south west of the city had our name on it…..for the enticingly named Paradise loop. Parked and paid our $10 for the day.

It is a completely different landscape from the BC interior, but no less beautiful.

There are multiple loop trails in this conservation area…the one we chose actually combined all the of them along the way.

Its hard to know whether to look up or down, as the clouds dance their way by.

Boy it was windy out there. The first part of the trail is up over a ridge and grassland…so no shelter…..we were very glad of hats and gloves at that point. As we dropped down from the first ridge it was a little more sheltered for a bit…then we got blasted off our feet again…..it was most entertaining…….lol….

The park is mostly grassland but also leads through birch forest…which seems to me now to be very “Alberta’. The rolling low level hills of the grasslands have a very distinct beauty of their own. …and the skyscape with those oil painting unreal clouds…..is fascinating. Interior BC is Ponderosa pine for the most part…Alberta is birch…

There are strategically placed memorial benches and picnic tables along the way…it would be a great place to stop for lunch….if it was not so bloomin’ windy..!!

Just like the mountains, as we wander over this undulating landscape I just don’t ever get tired of the vistas.

Then there are the reminders of the prominent presence of bears around (yes I have my bear spray on board..!!)

The amazing thing in this part of the world is, because Alberta is so flat….the horizon to the west is….the Rockies for as far as you can see….north and south. Its like someone made a larger than life wallpaper border…and stuck it all the length of the western border of Alberta.

It was a trail with just enough grades to make it a bit challenging (especially for the photographer who is constantly running up and down the trail ahead and behind to get his shots …!!! (Suffering for his art…but believe me…not in silence..!!))

I think this was my favourite image for the day…..the ever present mountainous horizon.

Lovely walk …lovely day….grand day out with Bronagh.

Extra pix