Andrew Underwood

Long Weekend Post

So the other day I was going for a mountain bike ride with a guy from work. We headed out of town, into the coolies east of Riverstone. It was a pretty challenging ride with all the hills and valleys. We saw a bunch of deer and cacti… However the next day I came down the stairs to my place to see my bike with both tyres flat. I reckon I ran over a cactus, there were lots…

I am in the Crowsnest Pass for the long weekend, the weather is great and I have been having a good time. Yesterday my Dad and I were riding our bikes up a private road to Allison Lake with our dog Cleo. We were going slowly as we approached the dam because we were waiting for Cleo to catch up. All of a sudden, in a calm voice my Dad says “Stop, grizzly bear”, much like if he were to say “Stop, hammer time.” I looked up and there it was about 30m from us. We think it was about 3 years old, but it didn’t notice us or didn’t pay us any attention because it just kept on eating the whole time. Cleo didn’t notice it though, which is probably a good thing. We slowly turned around and retreated down the road a bit more into the shadows and watched it for a bit longer. We went home, my Mum called Fish and Wildlife, turned out both officers were up in Canmore or something. Keep in mind this area is right beside a campsite that had no vacancy thanks to the long weekend. After this we took our bikes up to the lake again along a different route. We swam from the beach over to the dam. The bear was still there and we had quite the show as it was about 45m away as we stood on the other side of the lake and watched it. It went into the water a couple of times up to it’s head. It was really cool. Right now we are going up to the lake to swim again so I have to run.