Red Rock Coulee

 On the morning of Wednesday August 19th Hailey and I hit the road from East Coulee, to Red Rock Coulee.  We bought groceries the evening before and tried to be ready in the morning.  After a couple of false starts... taking on water, putting the plug in the hot water tank, etc. we finally hit the road by mid morning.  It was smoking hot, clear and sunny, and very hazy.  I think the temperature peaked at about 33C.  The haze was partially from the heat and humidity, but I think the fact that the harvest was well under way in southern Alberta, was putting a lot of dust into the air.  It was somewhat surprising to me to see that the grain crops were a couple of weeks further advanced as compared to crops in Central Alberta.  A number of fields were already combined.

After a brief stop for fuel in Medicine Hat we continued further south into Forty Mile County and by early afternoon arrived at the Red Rock Coulee Provincial Natural Area.  Although we have been here many times before, this was our first trip in several years.  There is just a gravel turnaround at the end of the road and we set up our trailer here.  It is not an official campsite and there are no outhouses and no fires allowed.  The only facilities are an interpretive sign and one picnic table.  We parked the trailer and settled in.

By late afternoon Margarit and Helena arrived.  Annelise decided to stay home in the city.  We had an evening meal of pasta and sauce and wandered around a bit among the boulders while watching the sunset.  This area is on the southwestward facing slope of Bullshead Butte.  Here there are many enormous sandstone concretions in varying stages of eroding out of the hillside.  Some are intact while many are fractured and split apart.  The area has a rather eerie feel as is was parched dry.  The girls saw a couple of cottontails but other than that it seemed devoid of life.  The prairie flowers were all finished blooming and the ground was very dry and split open.  We heard some packs of coyotes in the evening but of course they are able to travel distances to nearby dugouts for water.  The smaller animals were non-existent, except for birds.  The nighthawks put on a display in the evening, swooping and diving, catching insects and presenting their "booming" courting display.

We stayed for two nights and on Friday morning hit the road.  I stopped in Medicine Hat to photograph a couple of neon signs, while the girls checked out an antique store.  We headed back up to East Coulee and arrived back at the shop by mid-afternoon.  We spotted the trailer in the yard at the shop and settled in to relax for a couple of days.

While we were there I sent my drone up for an aerial view of the concretions.  Quite a different perspective from up above....