Sunday, August 07, 2005
Grotto Canyon
This is getting to be a habit, but I'm loving it. I was looking for another nice hike that would be fairly popular, so there would be people around. Nony suggested several, and one that stood out was Grotto Canyon. What a spectacular place!
I got there about 7:00, parking in in the lot by Grotto Mountain Pond, a lovely picnic area beside Highway 1A. Despite the forcast calling for a hot day, it was a tad chilly at the start. The path at the start is a cut line that follows the power line to the Baymag plant, an ore processing plant. I think the sign said it processed magnesium oxide. Noisy place, as what sounded like a truck load of rock was being dumped every few minutes.
But that was left behind fairly quickly at a dry creek bed that led into the trees and a gap in the rock. Not far in, it had narrowed quite a bit, and had picked up some running water, that trickled in and out of the rocks and gravel on the canyon floor.
What was really neat about the water, was how the sound of it changed. Every couple of steps it seemed like the sound was coming from a different direction, and the quality changed dramatically, too, from gurgling to babbling to sloshing to... and like that. I found myself taking a few steps, stopping to listen, taking a few steps, listening. Amazing.
The canyon suddenly stops at a rock wall, with water oozing from cracks in the rock and down the face.
If you look up, there are a few anchors left by rock climbers with various climbing things hanging from them. To the right is a short, and fairly steep path up to a waterfall, which is the source of the water that makes all those wonderful noises farther down the path. The path is on bare rock, worn smooth by who knows how many hikers climbing up there, and it's a little slippery.
The cave beside the waterfall is not quite big enough to stand in, and it only goes a few feet into the rock face, but it's dark in there, and hard to tell how deep it is, really.
There were a few ravens hanging around at this point, I took a couple of pictures but they didn't turn out well, as they were moving and the light levels were quite low at that time of the day. But here's an artsy shot of one flying across the canyon.
He's the small dark smudge in the centre of the, uh, big smudge.
But the quiet! Even these big birds made hardly any noise. There was a stillness in the place that was magical. I can see why the First Nations peoples considered this a spiritual place. Venturing past the wall with the climbing equipment, and continuing up the creek bed a couple of hundred metres, there is a sharp bend, and while the sound of the waterfall never quite disappears, the stillness is almost a physical thing. But it's not an eerie or spooky thing. I found it ... "comforting" is the only word that comes to mind. Neat!
And then a few more steps, the canyon widens out, and the effect is gone.
There are paths all through the trees along side the creek bed, but I mostly ended up going up the middle of the creek. The problem with the paths are the multitude of spider webs strung between every pair of trees. Bleah! So I clambered over the rocks and through the gravel.
The canyon stayed in shadow for quite awhile since I was there so early, but eventually the sun started to peek over the shoulder of the ridge on the right. I thought this tree looked kind of neat, backlit by the sun while the rest of the mountain side was still in shadow.
There are a couple of massive hoodoos, maybe a kilometre past the waterfall, one with huge cave in the side. These things reach several hundred feet up,
Check out the rock hanging from the side of the one ridge. It's probably the size of a small house.
After this, it was mainly scrambling up the creek bed over rock and gravel. At one point, where it turned rather sharply to the right, it narrowed a little, and the creek bed had this channel that criss-crossed back and forth between the rock faces. I imagine that's where the strongest current flowed when there was water coming down.
Eventually the canyon spread out again, and the bush started to close in a little. At the three hours mark, I decided to turn around and head back. Elevation 1784 m (5847 ft) The walk down went fairly quickly, and occasionally I would be accompanied by a chipmunk scurrying across the rocks. I played with the timer on my camera, so I could get into a couple of shots. This one was near the hoodoos.
I was back at the rock face with the climbing equipment at about 4 3/4 hours, and that was when I finally met other hikers. After that it got busy. Several people were coming up the canyon, and at one point there were rock climbers tackling a rock face that was about 30 metres high.
Back past the Baymag plant, and to a now full parking lot by the picnic area. The time was 5 hours and 25 minutes since I had started out. Then it was just a short drive down 1A to Canmore for a burger and a beer, and then home.
I got there about 7:00, parking in in the lot by Grotto Mountain Pond, a lovely picnic area beside Highway 1A. Despite the forcast calling for a hot day, it was a tad chilly at the start. The path at the start is a cut line that follows the power line to the Baymag plant, an ore processing plant. I think the sign said it processed magnesium oxide. Noisy place, as what sounded like a truck load of rock was being dumped every few minutes.
But that was left behind fairly quickly at a dry creek bed that led into the trees and a gap in the rock. Not far in, it had narrowed quite a bit, and had picked up some running water, that trickled in and out of the rocks and gravel on the canyon floor.
What was really neat about the water, was how the sound of it changed. Every couple of steps it seemed like the sound was coming from a different direction, and the quality changed dramatically, too, from gurgling to babbling to sloshing to... and like that. I found myself taking a few steps, stopping to listen, taking a few steps, listening. Amazing.
The canyon suddenly stops at a rock wall, with water oozing from cracks in the rock and down the face.
If you look up, there are a few anchors left by rock climbers with various climbing things hanging from them. To the right is a short, and fairly steep path up to a waterfall, which is the source of the water that makes all those wonderful noises farther down the path. The path is on bare rock, worn smooth by who knows how many hikers climbing up there, and it's a little slippery.
The cave beside the waterfall is not quite big enough to stand in, and it only goes a few feet into the rock face, but it's dark in there, and hard to tell how deep it is, really.
There were a few ravens hanging around at this point, I took a couple of pictures but they didn't turn out well, as they were moving and the light levels were quite low at that time of the day. But here's an artsy shot of one flying across the canyon.
He's the small dark smudge in the centre of the, uh, big smudge.
But the quiet! Even these big birds made hardly any noise. There was a stillness in the place that was magical. I can see why the First Nations peoples considered this a spiritual place. Venturing past the wall with the climbing equipment, and continuing up the creek bed a couple of hundred metres, there is a sharp bend, and while the sound of the waterfall never quite disappears, the stillness is almost a physical thing. But it's not an eerie or spooky thing. I found it ... "comforting" is the only word that comes to mind. Neat!
And then a few more steps, the canyon widens out, and the effect is gone.
There are paths all through the trees along side the creek bed, but I mostly ended up going up the middle of the creek. The problem with the paths are the multitude of spider webs strung between every pair of trees. Bleah! So I clambered over the rocks and through the gravel.
The canyon stayed in shadow for quite awhile since I was there so early, but eventually the sun started to peek over the shoulder of the ridge on the right. I thought this tree looked kind of neat, backlit by the sun while the rest of the mountain side was still in shadow.
There are a couple of massive hoodoos, maybe a kilometre past the waterfall, one with huge cave in the side. These things reach several hundred feet up,
Check out the rock hanging from the side of the one ridge. It's probably the size of a small house.
After this, it was mainly scrambling up the creek bed over rock and gravel. At one point, where it turned rather sharply to the right, it narrowed a little, and the creek bed had this channel that criss-crossed back and forth between the rock faces. I imagine that's where the strongest current flowed when there was water coming down.
Eventually the canyon spread out again, and the bush started to close in a little. At the three hours mark, I decided to turn around and head back. Elevation 1784 m (5847 ft) The walk down went fairly quickly, and occasionally I would be accompanied by a chipmunk scurrying across the rocks. I played with the timer on my camera, so I could get into a couple of shots. This one was near the hoodoos.
I was back at the rock face with the climbing equipment at about 4 3/4 hours, and that was when I finally met other hikers. After that it got busy. Several people were coming up the canyon, and at one point there were rock climbers tackling a rock face that was about 30 metres high.
Back past the Baymag plant, and to a now full parking lot by the picnic area. The time was 5 hours and 25 minutes since I had started out. Then it was just a short drive down 1A to Canmore for a burger and a beer, and then home.
# posted by Kelly @ 12:08 a.m. 
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
