Canada Day Hiking in Blakiston Valley

I knew that come hell or high water I was going hiking on Canada Day. June was such a busy month for me that I didn’t make it out to the mountains all month (so not cool). Nothing was stopping me, not feeling guilty over skipping a family get together, not Ryan being a baby about a cut on his foot and not coming, not a bunch of low smoke from the fires in Saskatchewan. I woke up and headed to Waterton.

I decided to try Blakiston Valley because I had never done it before and I figured it wouldn’t be well travelled meaning I could be bad and let the dogs run a bit.

Most people who visit Red Rock Canyon do the 1 km hike to the observation deck of Blakiston Fall but almost no one goes past it.

Of we went where I tested the dogs new harnesses and 2 in 1 leash and away we went.

 

First off, being a valley hike, there is very little climbing throughout this hike. The beginning of the hike hugs the Blakiston Creek and I found and area that looks just like Red Rock Canyon minus the tourists! I’ll be bringing friends and family back here for hot summer days of playing in the water.

My dogs adore water so every time we came close to it, they would jump in. I even had to yell at them a couple times when they approached cliff sides.

After we crossed a couple of dry creek beds we got into the forest and stayed in the forest the whole time. There was a ton of beargrass which I enjoyed, but other than that I was deep in the woods and had no mountain views. That  paired with being alone with only the dogs to talk to, I started to get pretty bored pretty fast.

I figure I was about a kilometre away from the end of the trail when I passed a pile of bear scat. I gave it a poke and it was 4 or 5 days old so I didn’t think anything of it and kept going. But when I walked into something that distinctively smelled like a sweaty horse and heard a thump in the woods off the trail, I opted to turn around. Maybe I was being a big chicken and it was just a deer but as I was hiking alone and had forgotten bear spray I didn’t want to mess around. Besides, I was really bored by that point.

Isn’t it terrible? How could you ever get bored on a hike? Well, I’m a talker and having no one but my dogs to talk to gets old fast.

On the way back, the dogs lost steam. I knew they were really tired when they both fell in line BEHIND me as we walked which I thought was crazy. But I stopped at every spot wqith easy access to the creek and let them drink and swim. At one point near the end, Apollo just sat in the water and cooled himself off.

To be honest, I didn’t care too much for this hike. In fact, I started making up lyrics and singing about how bored and tired I was on the way back. Ha ha! I’ll definitely do the first half again and take friends and family swimming in the creek. But to do that 10km to the end and back just doesn’t seem like fun. Next time, I’ll do the whole Snow Shoe trail because the little bit I did to get to Goat Lake last year was gorgeous.

But it was a great day of being outside and with my stitches removed, I’m ready to get back to my workouts!