Walking Trails in Grande Prairie Alberta

One of the best kept secrets are the fabulous walking trails down by the Bear Creek Ball Diamonds in Grande Prairie, Alberta. The same place where ball tournaments and the East Coast Garden Party are held every year. I know! Who knew!!

Just a short drive to the south end of the city, and still well within city limits, it's like being in nature with all the cell service a person could want!

I've been exploring the area and have gone at various times during the day and it seems that hardly anyone uses them. I've run into maybe a half dozen people on the trails themselves. The trails leading to it that run the length of the city are fairly busy but not once you get past the ball diamonds.

Picture from the bridge.

It's nearly impossible to get lost. If you get off trail, any direction you go will take you back to civilization. But just in case, there are apps out there that let you draw trails so you can back track. Or better yet, return to the side trails that lead you down to the creek. There's a number of them. I'm not going to tell you where. You'll have to find them yourself ;-)

To make this post a bit easier to read, and if you need the map, there are more photos of the Bear Creek walking trail below the map.

If you don't mind using your data... the app I used below is Gaia GPS. It's available in the app store on iTunes. I'm not sure about Android.

 

The map that's outlined in purple is a little less 4 km long. The one in blue on the left is a smidgen over 2 km. The loop on the right is roughly 1.7 km. The shorter trail on the left is ok but not my favourite. It's a little woodsy, but you do end up walking right by the ball diamonds in some open area too. 

The blue, shorter trail on the left isn't very well marked and doesn't really look like much at the start of it from the walking bridge from 68th Ave. Look for this garbage bin. That's the marker...I guess.

And in case you have small children in strollers or on bikes (I'm envisioning training wheels. Adult and experienced bikers can ride these) or need to have paved walking trails, DO NOT use these! They are "sort of" kept up by the city. There are fallen trees in places on occasion, muddy spots and lots of tree roots you need to negotiate. Most strollers or wagons are going to be hard to push or pull through.

If you're looking to "get away" from the city for a little while, but still be able to hit Starbucks in minutes, then I highly recommend checking out this awesome spot.

Bridge from below

Ducks. There's lots of chickadees, geese & other birds, too!

View From Above - Saskatoon Mountain, Alberta, Canada

Enjoy the view from atop Saskatoon Mountain without the drive! I set this one to a combination of peaceful guitar music and soothing bird songs. I hope you enjoy it!

Be sure to watch for the duration of the video. There's a couple of vehicles that come and go, kicking up dust from the gravel road in the process. You'll see a truck drive along the bottom left then make a turn and drive out of view at the very beginning. Later in the video, another vehicle makes the opposite trip.

As an aside, this little guy/gal came to see me just as I was setting up my camera to shoot the video of the lay of the land below. I quickly turned my camera around and caught him/her nibbling some seeds on the old stump before he/she disappeared back into the bush. I left it some almonds as a thank you when I was done recording my video. :-)

If you would like more information about Saskatoon Mountain, you can read a little more about it in my other post here - Path in the Woods.

Deer Walks By - Soothing Native American Flutes and Birdsong for Meditation

Not much to say about this one. It may look like the middle of nowhere but I shot this over the fence of my parents' backyard in Medicine Hat, Alberta. In case you haven't put it together yet, we went down for a visit at the beginning of July, hence all the Southern Alberta videos. And there's still more to come. :-)

Not going to give specifics on the whereabouts, but here's the video. It turned out even better than I thought it would with a little creative audio editing. And just in case you're wondering, it's not the same as the deer video I shared in this post. That was a doe, a deer, a white tail deer (sorry, I couldn't help myself). Seriously though, this one is a mule deer buck.

I edited the video twice. Once with the flute above and another with only birdsongs and insect noises. You can watch that one here. BTW I'd love to hear from you which of these you prefer. Feel free to leave your opinion in the comments below!

Calming Giant Red Rock Meditation - Red Rock Coulee, Alberta, Canada

One of the most unique landscapes in Southern Alberta, this place looks exactly how it appears in the video; very austere, expansive and a bit unnerving.

I ran into some production issues while making this, hence why it's a slide show and not a long take video. It is VERY windy there. Always. The wind caused the camera to shake and vibrate and no amount of stabilization through my video editing would get rid of it. Thankfully I took a bunch of pics with my phone when I was there! Anyways, here's the video.

I set this slide show to Moby's LA6; I felt that it matched the feeling of the place. And as a quick side note, it's a part of his Long Ambients1 album (which I'm sure I'll use again). He's given this away for free and you can download the entire recording from his website here - Moby - Long Ambients1. It's awesome and you should.

A little more about this place. Many of the rocks are wearing down and they slide apart in perfect layers.

And they're really, really BIG! My son, who's in this pic, is over 6 feet tall. I included this grainy image so you can get a perspective on the size of these things.

The rocks are buried in what I'd describe as a clay like material. When it rains it washes away and leaves the harder red rocks. Just think, in a couple hundred years, this rock may be completely exposed like the one above.

A little about this place. There is literally nothing here but wide open prairie, large red rocks in various stages of weathering, a picnic table and this sign. There isn't even a port-a-potty so plan wisely, people.

(Yes, you are in rattle snake country. I never encountered one there myself, but have seen a dead one on the highway in the general area. But that was years ago...)

If you decide to take the trip out to see this area for yourself, be sure to bring everything you need including water, food, toilet paper, extra clothing (it's either windy and hot or windy and cold), etc. It's a little off the beaten path but you can get out there in about an hour if you are starting in Medicine Hat. There's not a lot to do but walk around and look at the rocks and get some good photo opps (just think of the instagram photos!) but sometimes you just are looking for something to do in a day. 

Waves on the River

The latest in my videos shot that day we went down to the South Saskatchewan River at Police Point Park. This particular video was done on the suggestion of my son. He thought it would make for a great video. Guess he was right!

I tried to make a good balance between the sounds of the water and birds and the guitar music I selected. If you're interested, you can listen to both pieces of music at full speed (I slowed it down for a more relaxing and zen-like feel to the video).

The Encouragement Stick by Doctor Turtle

Also available on Spotify and Apple Music. 

Which That Is This? by Doctor Turtle

Also available on Spotify. 

Photo of a genius with a good idea.

The video was shot a little further down the river from where this photo was taken.

Once again, I can't stress enough how lucky the city of Medicine Hat, Alberta is to have such a wonderful natural area that runs through the city! For more info on the location you can use this handy map and go to the interpretive centre's page here -  http://www.natureline.info