Cypress Hills, S Alberta Prairie

Ann McRae

Hi all

I am spending a few days around Cypress Hills and Medicine Hat. Have some big sky, breadbasket kinds of shots in mind, but if any of you have any hidden secret gem spots, I'd love to hear of them.

Thanks
ann

Ann McRae

Well, it was a great 4 days and I can't wait to go back. I will post a 'journey' once I am able to get some photos edited. For the record, I will post links to the stops we made and what we saw along the way now.

We headed out of Edmonton bright and early Thursday morning, and chose to travel Highway 2A rather than the busy main route of Highway 2.
I kept looking for the quintesential prairie wheat field in sweet light and interesting vast sky, but alas it wasn't to be found!
We zigzagged around at Red Deer(breakfast) and ended up passing by Joffre on our way to Highway 56 Stettler to Drumheller (lunch), with our first photo stop at the height of noon at the Hoodoos. Drumheller has many interesting places to visit, not least of which is The Royal Tyrrell Museum, but we were just passing through this time. From Drumheller we took Highway 10 SE to Highway 36 and into Dinosaur Provincial Park.
We took a short hike from the visitor center to the top of the plateau, took some photos and then travelled to Highway 1, through Medicine Hat and on to Highway 41S to Elkwater. Our destination was the lovely Elkwater Lake Resort in the town of Elkwater,Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park

South Eastern Alberta is at the top of the North American Grain Belt, and is mostly flat prairie and big blue skies. However, there are several interesting geographies scattered throughout this corner of the province, and we tried to explore each one of them.

This part of the province has true desert climates, forests in the Cypress Hills and sweeping grassland. Animal life ranges from deer and pronghorn antilope through rattlesnakes and scorpions.

The weather was gorgeous, and it was a great road trip. Edmonton - Medicine Hat is 550km one way, and you will see that represents less than a quarter of our province!

I will link to my 'journey' when I have it ready.

ann

Ann McRae

Journey Thread