Fish Creek Provincial Park August 31, 2018

With wide open days at this point in my life,  it's time to invest hours on end exploring wide open spaces in the city, but far from the core of it.  In the past I dined at The Ranche in Fish Creek Provincial Park and I biked a part of the Park back in 2009 but hiking here remained elusive until today.  We had the map with us and picked a route to follow.  The idea was to fill our day walking & talking, snacking & snapping shots.  When all was said and done, we accomplished that while covering 15.5kms of trail.  

There were paved paths & dirt trails.

My friend declared this is our new office view!  We worked side by side for decades with loads of time to chit-chat.  Now that we are both retired, it takes work to find time to share that is open on both our calendars.

Our day was glorious with blue sky and those fluffy puffy clouds I love so much.  It was warm, scenic, breezy and bugless.  Our route took us over bridges.....

.....and along the shores of the famous for fishing Bow River.

I know in the past there have been black bear sightings and warnings in Fish Creek Provincial Park.  I  confirmed with my friend we would be fine without our bear spray.  I have been trending with bear encounters while out exploring our playgrounds the past couple of months.  Today though we only spotted american white pelicans and deer.

The dirt path section along the Bow River was beautiful.  

We were able to get down to the river's edge.  

Hours passed as did the kilometers.  The only telltale sign of that was feeling it in our feet.  We had a couple more bridges to cross, even a creek crossing, before arriving back at where we started about five hours prior.

When I saw our track on google earth, I noticed there is another whole section to Fish Creek Provincial Park that we did not even touch on.  That can only mean one thing, I will have to go back! Until then, there are other parks & places to invest our time when we have time.  Ah, retirement, that's the life!