Fall Badlands Trip

Last weekend I packed up the trailer and headed down to the badlands of southern Alberta.  The girls stayed home and I headed out by myself.  On Friday evening after work I headed down to East Coulee.  I parked the trailer in front of my shop, and crashed for the night.  Early the next morning I met up with my friend Frank and we headed off to the southeast.  We set the trailer up in the campsite at Sandy Point.  By late morning we were headed out into the badlands for a day of hiking.  We were in a very rough and remote area and after parking the truck we set out on foot.  I had my big view camera with me and was looking forward to a day of back country hiking and photography.  There was quite a bit of fossil material around, but nothing really remarkable.  There were a lot of disassociated and isolated dinosaur bone fragments and I photographed some of them with my digital camera.  It was a beautiful warm day, with mostly sunny skies, and the temperature rose to nearly 20C.  

At one point in the afternoon we heard the racket of a flock of geese honking.  Soon they became visible against the blue sky and we saw that they were Snow Geese.  As they passed over us the flock became very agitated and circled.  Suddenly we heard a roar that sounded like a passing fighter jet.  The whole flock had swooped in unison into a steep dive, avoiding a large eagle that was attacking them from above.  The eagle was not successful in capturing any of the geese and eventually gave up and the eagle and the flock flew off in opposite directions.  Frank and I stood there in awe and marveled at what we had just witnessed.

By late afternoon it clouded over and became breezy.  We eventually made our way up out of the badlands and back to the truck.  By the time we drove all the way back to the campsite it was nearly dark.  We got a big fire going and fired up the BBQ.  After a hearty dinner of steak and baked potatoes we proceeded to put a dent into the local beer supply as we sat around the fire keeping warm and swapping lies.  It really cools down at this late point in the season, once the sun has set.