We finally had a day with no rain on our first day at Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta. The park is fairly small, but has lots to see. The park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to the amount of dinosaurs that have been found in these badlands. Erosion has uncovered thousands of fossils, deposited some 75 million years ago when the area had a subtropical climate and was near a warm sea during the Cretaceous Period. The climate and soil composition made for ideal preservation of fossils. Over 150 complete dinosaur skeletons have been found since digging began over 100 years ago, along with several large bone beds containing more than 50 dinosaur species and 450 types of other fossilized organisms.
Our set-up in the campground
Sleeping in the van, chillin' in the tent
The park has a nice museum that includes exhibits of fossils found onsite, as well as a history of prehistoric Alberta and Canada. I had no idea that Canada, and in particular Alberta, has been the site of some of the top dinosaur finds in the world, both in terms of quality and quantity. The park also offers tours of the active digsites, which was what we had hoped to do today. After going through everything in the museum, it was time for our tour. Unfortunately, the dig site tour was canceled due to mud from all the rain that has fallen in the past week. We were sad, but the park really did their best to make up for it. They took us on a smaller tour instead, hitting everything in the park except the dig site. When we returned to the museum, our guide took us into the lab area and let us see where they prep the fossil finds. She even let us handle pieces of ancient turtle shells, dinosaur teeth and an ankle bone from an Albertosaurus. Our tour group was small, but very diverse. We were the only Americans. There were a few Canadians on the bus from the eastern side of the country, a pair of Italians, as well as an Aussie from Sydney that had flown to Calgary for the week. It was pretty cool just chatting with everyone.
Complete skeleton inside the museum. It is laying in what is known as the "death pose."
I enjoyed the humor of the park tour
One of the old dig sites we went to on the tour. This one was preserved before the fossils were extracted so you could see what it looks like during a dig.
Dinosaur has numerous hiking trails as well. All are short and most curve around through the badlands offering up nice views. Some pass by marked sites where major fossils were discovered. We looked for fossils everywhere we went since finds are being made all the time, but we didn't see anything. One of the trails was so muddy we could barely stay on the trail. It felt more like skiing than hiking. We ended the hiking in the early afternoon down by the Red Deer River with a flat loop through the cottonwoods. We completed every trail in the park.
Coulee Viewpoint Trail
The campground is down in those cottonwoods
Trail of the Fossil Hunters. Lots of fossil discoveries have been made in this area.
Marked fossil site
Cottonwood Flats Trail
Red Deer River
I went out for a road ride before dinner. There was a nice climb out of the park, but everything else was flat and it was very windy. I did some long TT intervals and sprints to entertain myself while on the prairie, then ended with a few hill repeats on the park climb until it started to get dark. It was so nice to get out on the bike in the sunshine, even if the wind was brutal. This was the first ride I have ever done outside of the U.S. so that was pretty cool.
Climbing out of the park
One mile into the ride and this was the view for miles and miles
You can't see the badlands of the park until you are really close.
Starting the descent into the park
The following day was still very muddy so we decided to leave the park. It looked like it would be several more days before the dig site tours would be available again. We set off for the town of Drumheller to see the hoodoos there. I had seen photos of them many times at national parks in the U.S. and said I would love to see them if I ever made it to Canada. Upon looking them up, they turned out to be near our route. Researching the hoodoos is what led me to Dinosaur Provinicial Park. The drive to Drumheller was so foggy we could not see anything for most of it. The fog was so thick and dangerous that I almost stopped at one point, but was afraid we might get hit from behind.
A foggy morning over Dinosaur Provincial Park as we headed out for Drumheller.
A couple of coyotes just outside the park
The hoodoos were cool, but the view was a bit ruined by scaffolding and ramps. All the accessibility features really got in the way. I love that anyone can get up there to see them, but really I don't see why anyone really needed to be that close to enjoy nature's beauty. Just have a trail around the perimeter. There were stairs and wheelchair ramps throughout the formations and it just killed it for me. I am so glad one of the world's most prominent dinosaur museums is also located in Drumheller. That made the two-hour drive over here worth it.
The Drumheller Hoodoos
I tried really hard to get a picture without a set of aluminum stairs in it
The pink port-o-john was a nice touch for the background. At least we got here before the tour bus.
Behind the hoodoos
We stopped to check out the Star Mine Suspension bridge closer to town.
The bridge crosses another portion of the Red Deer River. It was built in 1931 so workers could cross the river to work in a mine. They had crossed in rowboats and cable cars prior to the bridge being built.
I did this one alone. Shannon is not a fan of suspension bridges.
The
Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller was not on our list of places to visit, but we heard enough about it at Dinosaur to make us want to go. Royal Tyrrell holds some of the best dinosaur fossil specimens in the world. It really is unbelievable what is on display in there. It was as mind-blowing as the wall of fossils we saw at
Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado back in 2015. Many of the fossils come from Alberta, most with a story attached about how they were discovered. Most were found during construction projects for oil and roads. A few of our favorites were the "Black Beauty" T-Rex skeleton that was black in color due to high manganese content in the water around the bones as they fossilized; the almost perfectly preserved armored dinosaur called
Borealopelta that still has skin intact; and the massive swimming dinosaurs. Apparently, Alberta is known for having one of the greatest concentrations of duck-billed dinosaurs on the planet. The Albertosaurus I mentioned earlier when we held an ankle bone of it at the museum in Dinosaur Provincial Park, was first discovered in Alberta. It is a T-rex type dinosaur, just being a bit smaller and older. I thought they were kidding at first, but that really is the name of the dinosaur. There were plenty of those inside Royal Tyrrell as well. Outside, you can hike around behind the museum, where other fossils have been found. There was a huge chunk of petrified tree stump along the loop so at least I got to see one piece of petrified wood on this trip.
The "Black Beauty" T-Rex. The skull mounted on the skeleton is a cast as the real skull sitting on the floor is so heavy it would crush the display.
This is ammolite, a gemstone made from the preservation of a shelled cephalopod (squid/octopus family) called an ammonite. These are found almost exclusively in one mine in southern Alberta. They are very colorful and can be quite large. This shell had a diameter of about 18 inches.
A peek into the lab work area where new discoveries work their way toward future displays.
This is the mummified armored dinosaur. The front half has the skin intact and has so much detail. It really is a breathtaking fossil.
Mastodon
A cluster of fish that all died together. Found in Australia.
One of the giant swimming dinosaurs. This one was found at the edge of a river and had to be airlifted out.
Fossil of a fish within a fish. That's a spine and ribs within the belly of the large fish.
Don't ride 'em.
Overlooking the Royal Tyrrell Museum from the hiking trail.
Petrified stump
Hoodoos forming behind the museum
We were out of the museum just after lunch. The goal was to get beyond Calgary today and maybe close to Banff. We did find one more thing to check out along the way. While looking for places to mountain bike, we discovered the Canada Olympic Park, home of the
1988 Winter Olympics. It's now referred to as
WinSport. Calgary 1988 was the olympic event that saw the first appearance of the famous Jamaican Bobsled Team that led to the movie
"Cool Runnings." (Watch it on YouTube
here) The movie was filmed here on the actual Olympic bobsled course. The Jamaican bobsled sits out front of the main entrance next to a sled featuring the Calgary Olympic logo and one in Team Canada colors. Besides all the winter sports facilities like ice rinks, ski trails and a bobsled course, the park has a mountain bike park in the summer, complete with lifts. I was excited to check it out, but it turns out the season closed the weekend before we arrived. The lifts were shut down and some of the trails were already being converted over for the winter to ski and snowboard courses.
Calgary Olympic Park
The Jamaican bobsled from "Cool Runnings"
We did not leave without havng some fun though. They have built a downhill karting course near the bobsled course. Shannon had spied this on the website before the trip. I wasn't expecting much, but a karting pass was very affordable so we decided to try it out. We had sooooo much fun! The course was long and fast. It was curvy and quite dangerous at times. It was one of the few times I have found a public ride that was not scaled-down too much for safety. It took a run or two to get used to how the karts drove. They handle well and have a hand brake. If you have the guts, you don't have to pull that brake very much even thtough most of the turns are very sharp. There were other people on the course, but not enough to get in each other's way very often. I smoked Shannon the first few runs, but she kept getting better. On our last run, I let her lead and tried to pass her. She raced me as hard as anyone ever has in any bike race. I tried several times, but couldn't make the pass. The straights were just long enough to get up a lot of speed, but not enough to make a pass before the next hairpin turn. We were side-by-side halfway down when their cameras caught a shot of us. We ended up catching some people a few turns later. Shannon passed them, I didn't for a while. We were so much faster that I was worried I would scare the poor people to death. Shannon just toasted them. Once I finally cleared them, I got back to Shannon, pulling up next to her as we entered the parallel finish corrals that slow the sleds down before the end of the course. I came out of the corral first so I think I won. Shannon says she won because she got to the corral first. There was no official finish line so I guess the debate will go on forever. She tells people the picture at halfway was the finish photo because it has a checkered line painted on it, but I am here to tell you it wasn't. I have never seen her be so competitive. I love it! That was probably the most fun thing we have ever done together. We are still laughing about this afternoon even as I write this over two years later. If you are ever in Calgary in the summer, go to WinSport and ride the karts. You will not regret it!
One section of the long downhill karting track. Those blocks are before a turn and keep riders from entering the hairpins too far to the inside to make the corner.
Ski jumping tower
Looking down on the western side of Calgary
That photo I was talking about from halfway down on our last run.
Before leaving the Olympic park, I did take a look at the service road that climbs to the very top of the hill. That was the climb used back in 2014 when the Tour of Alberta began with a
prologue TT to the top. That was the day we all realized Tom Dumoulin was going to be a beast. Tom Danielson was third that day.
We left once the karting course closed and had enough time to roll further west to finally find the edge of the prairie. The mountains loomed as we rolled toward Canmore. This area is the edge of the Rockies and has hosted many Canadian Mountain Bike National Championships over the years, as well as World Cup-level winter sports. Banff is just a few miles away. That was our target area for hiking and sight-seeing, but I wanted to spend some time on the trails in Canmore as well. We found a campground a little east of Canmore, but it was not very good quality so we kept heading west. We found another campground just outside of town at the base of a giant mountain. It was called the Three Sisters Campground in the Bow Valley Provincial Park. We got set up right before dark and spent a cold, but peaceful night snoozing in the back of the van.
No prairie in this view from our campsite
