Kananaskis Prairie View Day Hike May 2015

Hey, what's up? Hope you can hear me. Okay, so we're starting to hike a little bit now. The trail that we're doing today is called Prairie View. It should, as the name suggests, have some good views of the prairie towards the end. So, my name is Evan. That's Dani. Hi! If you're watching this, you've stumbled across our new channel. It's called Adventure Happy. So, basically what we're trying to do here is just share some of the adventures that we're having in the Canadian Rocky Mountains this summer. We always kind of like hiking, but last year, last winter, we decided that we wanted to do something a little bit more adventurous. So, we started getting into the backcountry, and that sort of culminated in the Chilkoot Trail from Skagway, Alaska to Bennett in British Columbia. It's a 54-kilometer hike, which is just amazing. And, you know, we decided we wanted to do more and more of that sort of stuff. As much as possible, we're going to try to get out into the mountains, and we thought it would be a cool idea to share those adventures with you guys. It was sort of inspired by a fellow on YouTube called Syntax77. If you like the outdoors, check out his channel. It's pretty awesome. But yeah, it's a pretty amazing part of the world out here, and not a lot of people get to see it. So, we're going to, you know, hopefully take some of you along for a ride. So, as I said, we're doing the Prairie View hike in Kananaskis Country right now. We're from Edmonton, Alberta, so most of our adventures are going to happen in the Rocky Mountains. It's only a few short hours away. Kananaskis is a big protected area in sort of central Alberta. With just, you know, some spectacular views, some amazing lakes, and tons and tons of great hiking. So, today we're just doing a day hike. We did camp out last night in a car camping area called Lac des Arc. Sorry, my French, not so good. It was not one we would go back to. It is sort of just right off the Trans-Canada Highway, so there's tons of road noise. The lake has a rock quarry or something on the other side of it, so there's some industrial noise. Not the greatest if you're into some true nature experiences. It's hard this time of year, there's nothing open. Yeah, it's true. The options for car camping in Alberta, it's the first weekend of May right now. Almost snowing. 2015. So, yeah, most of the car camping sites haven't opened up yet. And we got some new gear. It's our first time out this season, so we wanted to do something a little on the easier side. And our options were limited, so that's where we ended up going. It's nice and close to here, so the hiking is good. But the campsite itself, not so awesome. We'll get some footage of it later when we get back there. So, we're looking at about 13.5 kilometres today. So, it's just a nice little loop cut that starts at Barrier Lake. You go across the Barrier Dam, which, again, I'll get some footage of that on the way back. It's a nice look at the lake there. And it's a pretty well used, pretty popular trail. There's a ton of cars in the parking lot, so we'll probably be seeing a bunch of people later on. But right now, it's just kind of nice. What, the dizziness? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, the parking lot was completely full. So, I'm not sure if everyone's doing the same hike we are or what. But, yeah, so far, we're looking pretty good. So, I don't know if you can see, but there are some flurries of snow falling down. It's about four degrees Celsius. You Americans can do the math if you want to know what that is in Fahrenheit. Last night at the campsite, we probably dropped down to about three or four below. So, I don't know if you can tell, but we're pretty layered up right now with the clothes. We just had a hard time getting warm this morning. It took a long time to heat up. My sleeping bag is good to negative seven. But definitely not the most comfortable night's sleep, even at three or four below. We bundled up in the sleeping bag and it still got pretty cold. So, it's been a bit of a struggle to warm up this morning. It does look like the clouds are starting to clear out a little bit. Hopefully, we'll get some sunshine, especially when we get up to the viewing area. So, we can give you some good looks of the mountains and of the prairies. Alright, I guess that's it for now. I'll check in when I've got something decent to show you. That's kind of what Barrier Lake looks like there through those trees. As I said, I'll get some better shots of it when we get back to the dam. Give you a better idea of how it looks. So, the trees are still pretty barren at this point in the year. You do see some little buds trying to pop out into leaves, but no go yet. Everything's looking pretty dead still. So, anyways, onward and upward. Alright, here's a better look at Barrier Lake for you. Just gorgeous out here right now. It's a little overcast. It's a little chilly, but still, I can't imagine wanting to be anywhere else right now. Just beautiful. So, this lake is formed by a dam. It's a hydroelectric dam. I saw somewhere on the trail board there that the lake holds about 2.5 billion gallons of water and generates enough power for a town of 8,500 or so. So, yeah, not bad. On the plus side for us, we get to see beautiful scenery like this. Pretty awesome. Alright, so we're at the Jewel Bay Campground, kind of at the back of Barrier Lake. It's a little bit off the trail from where we were hiking, but we figured we'd pop in just to show it to you guys. Got some bear lockers, fire pit, there's the pooper. Horse hitching posts, etc., etc. Tent sites are down there. There's a little platform for you to put your tent on. Anyways, nothing too exciting. I'm going to throw a pin here for the GPS as well. I'm not sure where I'm going to be posting those GPS tracks, but I will be posting GPS tracks of all of our hikes going forward. Well, it looks like my battery is going to die. This camera is probably not going to cut it, unfortunately. So, sorry, we won't be getting much more footage. Yeah, alright. I like the shutter button. Looks like it's already recording. Does it? Yep, it's getting some good video of your feet. Excellent! My feet are sexy. Alright, so the trail changed up a little bit. We're trying to use Danny's camera to get a little bit of extra footage here. So, walking along this big rock wall. Not going to lie, I kind of want to climb it, but probably not the best idea. It is a little slippery out here. Alright, something a little bit different here. As we started to gain some elevation, we came across some snow, which is actually a little bit of a creek that leads to this nice little snowed-in, frozen-over waterfall right there. Do you hear the water behind me? Yeah, I'm not sure if you guys can hear that, but you can hear it running down there. It's just like pouring snow. It's pretty. Good thing we've been hiking a bunch and are super warm right now. It's actually really cool and so quiet all of a sudden. All you can hear is the snow falling on the trees. It's awesome. So, you can see that snow hasn't let up all day. There's been a nice light dusting pretty much all over the place as we gain elevation. We're getting pretty close, I think, to the prairie view part of the trail. Hi, Danny. Yeah, so, it's pretty overcast right now. I'm not super confident that we're going to get some nice views for you, but we'll try our best. It is very nice and quiet out here. It is very peaceful. We've been seeing a lot of people coming down the other direction, so they went sort of the opposite way on the loop that we did. Yeah, it's been good, though. It's been great out here. It's a little cold to start off with, but right now it just feels awesome to be out here. Alright, made it to the top. Well, almost. There's a little bit further to go, so we're going to go up there after, but we actually got a small little break in the snow for a second, so it is called Prairie View. It's still pretty sopped in, though, with all the clouds. Still, you can see Barrier Lake down there where we started out. So, yeah, we're going to head on. You can see where Danny's pointing. Just going to go up along that ridge and then back down to the lake. So, up there is sort of where we're headed next to get to the very top, but snap off another video when we get up there. See if maybe the clouds burn off a little bit more, but this might be as good as it gets as far as the views go, unfortunately. It's pretty cool up here, even in the clouds, but, yeah, you can imagine sort of where I'm shooting right now, you would just see the start of the foothills and the prairies just stretching out forever. So, yeah, pretty cool. Super, super happy with doing this hike today. It's pretty awesome up here. Want to come back and do it? Yeah, for sure. So, there's two ways to do it. We went sort of one way, and as I said, I'll post the GPS data somewhere. I'll link it in the description wherever I figure out to post it. So, we went one direction, which is awesome for hiking because it gets a lot of sort of this flat, boring stuff out of the way at the start and gets you the views near the end, but if you're going to mountain bike it, it's probably better to go the other way because you do the elevation at the start and then it's all downhill. So, we saw a ton of guys on mountain bikes just ripping down there and having a blast. So, yeah, anyways, I'll fire off another video as soon as we get up to the top here. Just see you soon. All right, little trip recap so far from where we are. So, we kind of started down. Here's the parking lot. Came along this side of the lake. Really great view of it right now. Came all the way around, and we came around the backside of this guy. And then up. You can kind of see through these trees the cliffs where we were up. I snapped off that last video. Then we're coming back down to finish the loop sort of along this ridge. Steep coming down. Yeah, from the very top there, the top of those cliffs is definitely the steepest part of the whole hike, but it's pretty short and very manageable. Some quick scrambling and you're set. Would definitely recommend this hike to anybody. It is pretty amazing for a four-hour time investment. You get a lot of bang for your buck. Even with all the snow and everything that we had today, I had such a good time out here. So, we'll see if anything else cool pops up. I'll come back and shoot some more video. But, yeah, pretty sweet. I keep thinking that I'm done with the video, but it's just started clearing up really nicely right now. And so, this is sort of the edge of the Rocky Mountains. You can imagine how amazing it gets when you get up into the real alpine stuff. So, it's going to be a fun summer. Cliffs where we came down from. Full circle. We're back on the Barrier Dam. I hope you guys can hear me. The wind's picking up quite a bit right now. So, I said I'd shoot a little bit of footage with it a little bit more clear. There you go. Pretty awesome hike today. Super excited to get some Kraft dinner in my stomach right now, though. It is lunchtime and it is well-earned. Danny's Fitbit just went off and said she knocked off about 2,000 calories on that hike. So, we're going to go gorge ourselves, eat some stuff, drink some stuff. Probably check back in in a little bit, though. Here we are back at our campsite for the evening. That's Trans-Canada Highway over there. I'm not sure if you can hear the noise. It is not the most peaceful of sights, but it's starting to feel pretty good with the sun coming out. We've got a big smorgasbord of food sitting in front of us right now. Just monging down. There's our little tent. I think it's pretty good. It's been a good investment. Time for some coffee. Coffee. Got the pot going. Will be boiling shortly. Want some Easy Mac. Dutch Crunch chips. Got a fire pit here. Got all my fire-making materials laid out. I'm going to do that up once it starts getting a little colder. Should be a nice evening. Alright. So, what did you think of the hike? I have candy. It was good. It was actually really pretty with all the snow. I didn't think I would enjoy that part as much as I did. Yeah, it was pretty cool out there. And the view was pretty spectacular once the clouds broke up. What did you think? I liked it. Just trying to pull up the info here. Come on, Mr. Government. It's cold now that we're not walking. It is. The sun keeps fighting to come out. And when it does, it's actually kind of nice out here. Okay, so our totals for the trip. Total time, 4 hours 20 minutes. We covered 15.7 kilometers. So a little bit longer than the guidebook said it was going to be. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was right around the 13 mark in the guidebook. We did that offshoot though to the campground. Our total ascent is 660 meters, which is what? 18? About closer to 2,000 feet. What was our average pace? Yeah, I'm not sure if I can pull that up. I think I might have deleted the trip computer. Oops. Yeah, those things happen. Let me see here. Yeah, okay. I'll have to look it up on the computer later because our moving average was 79.7 kilometers an hour. So I'm thinking that included the time in the car on the drive back to the campsite. I don't know. We moved pretty fast. Yeah. I did look at it just sort of shortly before we finished up, and our moving average was around 4.5 kilometers an hour. So that's pretty good for the first hike out of the season. Without packs on? Yeah, well, light packs anyways. Yep. Yeah, cool. It was good. I would recommend it. Yeah, definitely recommend it for anyone who wants to check it out. So, yeah, I mean, hopefully somebody out there watches this video and doesn't think we're complete toolbags. I don't know what else to say. These are going to be a work in progress. We've never done any video making, recording, video editing, anything like that. The editing should be fun. Yeah, so that's going to be the next hurdle. We'll see how that goes. So, yeah, I mean, I hope some people want to come along for the ride. And, you know, you got a taste today of sort of what this channel is going to be all about. And hopefully we'll see some even more spectacular scenery and hopefully some wildlife. No wildlife out today. The trail was so busy. So hopefully we do get some wildlife encounters over the course of the summer as well. So, yeah, I mean, I hope you guys want to come along for the ride. So thanks for watching. I'm Evan. I'm Dani. We're adventure happy. So, yeah, see you soon.