The Cypress Hills

Fri. 16 March:  The Cypress Hills

I have just travelled across over 350 km of ocean to reach a mysterious island.  Or so it seemed!

In fact, what I really did was drive east across the bare, snow-free prairies, as far as the very southeastern corner of Alberta.  Here the Cypress Hills rise up out of the flat land.  These hills are actually a forested plateau, sitting over 1000 feet higher than Calgary, and they are the highest point in Canada between the Rocky Mountains and Labrador!

They are well hidden.  You have to travel east of Medicine Hat on the Trans-Canada Highway, and then you turn south along a rolling, empty prairie road.  Only after about 40 kilometres of travel along this lonely road do you get a good view of this high plateau, dark against the wide open skies.  Perhaps surprisingly, by the time you reach the foot of the Cypress Hills you have climbed about 1700 foot from Medicine Hat.  Up here, there were still traces of snowdrifts along the edges of the rolling prairie hillsides.

Below the plateau sits a pretty lake, and on the far side of the lake is the only community of any size in this whole vast corner of Alberta.  Elkwater is a collection of holiday homes and condos, scattered in the trees above the lake.  This place is built for the crowds which invade the Cypress Hills on those few long summer weeks of the season:  playgrounds, campsites, boat docks.   There is just one general store and restaurant, next to the modern visitor centre.  The Elkwater Lodge is a resort hotel at the eastern end of the lake.

Today the place was almost deserted.  I looked into the Visitor Centre, which was open today.  A very helpful Information Officer, a lady of about my own age or a bit older, provided me with information about the two open campsites and the hiking trails.  When I told her I was planning to hike up onto the plateau, she showed concern for this lone hiker and gave me a number to call in case the Centre closed before I got back.  Next I dropped into the store and a friendly lady with an English accent told me that she hoped I wasn’t planning to camp out in a tent – which I was.  Apparently the weather can be very unpredictable in these parts.

The Elkwater campsite was not surprisingly deserted and partially snow covered.  Two sites had been cleared just enough for use, and I chose – after great deliberation!- site number A-1, where I pitched my tent.

It was overcast and a gusty wind was blowing.  My plan was to do an anti-clockwise circuit of about ten kilometers, up onto the high plateau and back down to the campsite.  Just in case there was more snow higher up, I carried my snowshoes on my pack - I would need them.  I felt a little like an explorer in a new land as I set out from my base.

Although the height gain to the plateau was less than 800 feet, it seemed a lot more than that.  The wide trail climbed steadily up the ridgeline, in the trees, with good views, early on, back towards Elkwater Lake and the gentle hills above the campsite.  There was intermittent snow cover on the trail, and eventually it was easier to put on the snowshoes for better traction.  At the first trail junction a yellow notice waned of “cougar in area”.  There may not be bears out here but that doesn’t mean there are no dangers to the hiker.

Once up on the plateau, the meadows opened out and I had my first spectacular sight of the bare, brown prairies far below, stretching to the horizon, framed by the trees. The edges of the plateau dropped away steeply to the land below.  The best view was at the Horseshoe Canyon, where the high ground has slipped away, leaving a curving line of cliffs.  Here the snowdrifts were several feet deep.

How odd it felt to have struggled up a long hillside to find a car park at the top of the plateau.  The road is closed in winter, so I had this lonely viewpoint to myself.  I turned east and followed the top of the plateau in the trees.  Here the snow had accumulated and I was glad of my snowshoes.  I stopped to look around a small outdoor museum which included a red and white fire lookout cupola on a short base.  Not sure I can count this on my list of fire lookouts visited – but then why not?

My return journey took me down a pretty creek, Mitchell Creek, which finally came back out at the campsite far below.  About halfway down, the snow started to give way to icy puddles so I swapped my snowshoes for MICROspikes.

It was still only mid-afternoon, so after checking in with Marion at the Visitor Centre (admiring the model of the Cypress Hills plateau and the stuffed animals) I took a drive eastwards through the Cypress Hills to the end of the open road at Reesor Lake.  The journey took me up through the hills past Hidden Valley ski resort – a tiny ski hill but still open and obviously popular as a day trip for schools. The road then ran along the open plateau, between the trees, before dropping steeply down to Reesor Lake. 

The views from the high point, looking down to the lake, were slightly reminiscent of the hills of Eastern Canada, but with a character of their own.  The lake was still frozen over.  It would make a perfect place for a “walk in the car” as we used to call our family picnic trips in the Derbyshire hills.

I saw no other cars along this road.  After a trip to the store for some supplies, and wood, I returned to my campsite and got a fire going.  The wind gusts were swirling through the trees, and so as darkness fell, I was ready for an early night.

I slept well and was on my way promptly the next morning, heading west across that vast ocean of empty brown prairie lands. This trip may not strictly fit the description of this blog (“My adventures in and around the Canadian Rockies”) but somehow there feels a strong connection between these two landscapes separated by five hundred kilometres of flat prairie. 

And the very next day, the Trans-Canada Highway was closed between Brooks and the Saskatchewan border by a wild blizzard that would no doubt have covered the Cypress Hills in a new deep coating of snow.

Statistics
Horseshoe/Mitchell Ck.
Fri. 16 March
Total Dist.	6.0  km (hike) +   4.0 km(‘shoe)  = 10.0 km
Height Gain	750 ft.
Max. Elev.	4,760 ft.
Time	3 hrs. 19 mins.

Other Stats.
Start hike:    11.22 am Arr Hshoe:   12.51 pm Dep Hshoe:    1.17 pm Mitchell Ck:   2.01 pm Ret. to camp: 2.41 pm	Temp: +11 deg.C Mix of sun, cloud, warm breeze Home-Elkwtr: 376 km (4 hrs 15 mins) TCH-Elkwtr: 38 km (25 mins)