{"id":123,"date":"2014-09-04T19:38:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T01:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gypsypilgrimjourney.wordpress.com\/?p=123"},"modified":"2014-09-04T19:38:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T01:38:00","slug":"hiking-in-the-cypress-hills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/2014\/09\/04\/hiking-in-the-cypress-hills\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiking in the Cypress Hills"},"content":{"rendered":"
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September 2 – White-tail deer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It has been a long time since I last entered anything into this journal. The only reason for the absence is perhaps a simple forgetfulness or lack of interest. Maureen and I are camped at Cypress Hills Park, the centre block. Our arrival here began with some unneeded stress as the van had just run out of oil requiring me to call CAA in order to get some oil brought to the campsite from Maple Creek which is about a half hour away. While waiting, we had our lunch, a late lunch. About an hour and a half after the call, the oil arrived. Finally we both calmed down and finished setting up our camping site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After we had relaxed a bit, we decided to go for a short hike of six kilometres on some of the inner trails. Our short hike proved to be good for us as we embraced the silence of the trail. I managed to capture a few images of squirrels and some white-tail deer as well as other nature images. It\u2019s surprisingly warm with the add-a-room up with the flaps down which keeps the cool evening air out of the camper.<\/p>\n\n\n

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September 3 on a forest trail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

On the second day, I wrote: “It\u2019s eight in the morning and we have had our morning coffee already in the add-a-room. We got up with the dawn watching the clouds appear and then turn orange with the rising sun. Now, the sky is completely overcast with thunder in the distance. The weather forecast for a rainy day appears to be correct for today though the rain hasn\u2019t yet started. We will do smaller hikes today when there are breaks in the weather, short hikes that will take us to the central core of the park where we can pick up better hiking maps for the good weather days to come.\u00a0 While I am keying this in, the clouds have descended cloaking the trees in mist as if we have entered a dark land of fog. In a way, I have to admit that I love these moments where reality seems to have shifted into a different realm.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that I have caught up, I can talk about today’s hike. <\/p>\n\n\n

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September 4 – TransCanada Trail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

We got up at 7:00 this morning to an outside temperature of 4C and a cabin temperature of 9C. More importantly, the sky was clear promising us a great day for hiking. We are heading north then west and then back as if in a circle to walk the western half of the TransCanada Trail in the Centre Block.  We got off by 9:15 and followed the Moose trail until it connected to the TransCanada Trail, then turned west until we got to the road that would take us to Bald Bute. The two look-out locations are impressive and warrant a return in time for sunset if sky conditions allow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We got to climb up to Bald Bute for a few more photos before heading down a dirt road that really was impassible for vehicle traffic. We decided to pass on the side trail to learn about prairie plants and ecosystem as we were unsure of just how much further we had to go to return back to our trailer. Often, we found ourselves walking in adjoining fields and forest in order to bypass deep water across the road. Every so often I would stop and note down the distance covered on the map we had along with us so that we would know better how to plan our hikes. We stopped for lunch shortly before we were to enter the TransCanada Trail at the western edge. The sign marking the TransCanada Trail was laying on the ground in need of repair. With one more stop en route to change socks, we finally covered 19 kilometres by the time we returned to the trailer. It was a great hike with incredible weather. All that was left was to download the photos and then use the service centre for shower and shave before relaxing with reading and writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been a long time since I last entered anything into this journal. The only reason for the absence is perhaps a simple forgetfulness or lack of interest. Maureen and I are camped at Cypress Hills Park, the centre … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}