April 6th Canyon Creek and the ice cave.

This one should be called attempted parenticide. Bronagh ( youngest daughter ) recommended this one. She had had some reviews from friends that it was a cool hike, and it seemed like an interesting idea.

The drive out to Kananaskis Country is very pretty. It is out in the same direction as the Paradise trail that we did with Bronagh….Kananaskis is quite lovely. As we drove in we did have the thought that we should purchase the pass…By the time we got to the trailhead there was no LTE…so we had to drive back up the road to get enough data to purchase the day pass…and then back to the trailhead again.

Hold onto something before you start in to this one…spoiler alert….there are A LOT of pictures…!!!..and some of them are pretty scary…or they were for me anyway…😂

Canyon Creek Ice caves….Alltrails described it as a 6km slog up a gravel road with an interesting bit at the end. ..and in truth the walk for the first bit was not particularly challenging…..but the landscape was NOT dull or boring in any way..

Kananaskis is just a little south west of Calgary (see maps)

Looking at the reviews and the pictures on the app it seemed like a good idea…that and the forecast was for a warm sunny day \(yup…up to plus 16 C…woo hoo..!!). The app suggested that it took an average of 3 hr 45 min……we thought we should easily manage that pace or better…..!!!!!!

Again…we are in bear country…and its definitely the season for those guys to be waking up…so we were as prepared as one can be,.

Maybe if you are local the rock faces and the deep canyons become dull and commonplace. We thoroughly enjoyed the walk. Made good time too….for the first 6km….😂

Then we got to the end of the road, and the start of the more challenging hike up the canyon side. No worse than others we have done.

…..and then you get to the shale…….!!!

Even at this point, although its getting rockier and a little steeper it is still quite manageable……

…and you can see the caves further up , which is encouraging….and it gets steeper, and the rocks get a little looser.

Until it has actually become almost rock climbing…hands and knees …pulling yourself up small rock chimneys……

…and if you grip tightly with your fingernails and turn around to look across the valley….the view is stunning…!!! ( and terrifying..!!)

The closer you get to the cave, the harder the climb becomes….

…even as you approach the mouth of the cave, it still doesn’t flatten out…..the first 20 feet or so in to the cave is still climbing…!!!

…and then once you are in…..its amazing. Where the water drips through there are grand icicles from the roof…

Inside the cave. I found a rock ledge to sit and have a snack and a drink and to contemplate how the heck we were going to get back down while Scott went deeper in to investigate the cave.

We had taken a flashlight with us, but it was not really cutting it to get pictures inside the cave. It was complete darkness in there, but with the flashlight you could see the ice stalactites and stalagmites.

After a bit of a rest…but not too long b/c it was cold in there……the hardest task of the day was picking our way back down the shale.

It was slightly less terrifying than I expected b/c coming down it was easier to see the path ahead…..no less steep or slippery. The big camera was packed away safely lest it get smashed on the rocks on the way down.

It was a bit of a scramble down but at least it was not icy. I imagine its also much more slippery in the summer when its dry and dusty. And probably a whole lot busier too…..!!

Phew….!!!

Back down to level ground. One of the reviews had suggested following the riverbed back down as being a bit more interesting than the gravel road……so thats what we did….

It was definitely more challenging underfoot but more importantly, gave us a whole new view of the canyon.

The rock formations were amazing Intermittently there were big rusty iron chunks. Also were the exposed shale layers in the riverbanks.

Some great little cliffs and rock faces….

We reached a bend in the riverbed that came close to the road…so we popped back up onto the road for the last couple of kms…..the river itself was becoming wider and snow covered……we also found some bear prints in the snow….!!!

There were a lot more rock climbers out and about by the time we were heading down. The cliff face in the next 3 photos was small in scale relative to the surrounding topography, but of course that can be deceptive. The climber you can see in the close up is also in the wider shots, bonus points if you find him.