Haven’t been keeping up with the blog, so here’s two walks for the price of one. Last Tuesday in Rossdale/Louise McKinney/Mill Creek and today the trail along Fort Edmonton Park. Both days were gorgeous. We are really having a fabulous October, which makes up for the cool, rainy September. Some leaves are still hanging in there, but for the most part they’ve shuffled off to their forever homes in the ground. Beautiful deaths, though. I’ll give them that.

14C

Saturday, Oct 10 – as beautiful as beautiful can be. Today – rainy and cold with horror-movie winds. So glad we went for a walk yesterday, to enjoy what might be the last really leafy autumn day in Whitemud Ravine. So sad that I raked. The yard is solid yellow again.

It was also probably the last day to wear shorts, although I tend to push it. It was 25C. Just gorgeous. The ravine was full of people. And white dogs. It was a white-dog day.

It was also a chipmunk day. I brought a bag of seed and nuts. Tom and I sat at the top of the hill (near the rickety stairs) and watched the chipmunks, red and white-breasted nuthatches, and a few chickadees have lunch. It was a sweet moment, of many sweet moments.

We then got a bit lost. Around the curve at the top of the hill near Rainbow Valley Road, we followed a trail by the creek (which has a really cool, waterfall-like water outtake valve) into a knot of spruce trees and thorn-covered wild rose bushes (I did not escape without a few thorns in my paw). It didn’t seem passable past a certain point, but a couple we chatted with on the trail, and then later on the bridge, were able to cross a dry creek bed back to the main trail. Ah well. Next time. It was wonderful to discover that lagoon-like spot with the ‘waterfall’. With the sunlight and the gentle spill of the water into the creek, it was very blissful.

We spent another blissful moment sitting on the ravine-edge bench near Westbrook, taking in the green and gold landscape against the blue sky.

Pure bliss.

Monday, Oct 5: Another ordinary extraordinary day in the ravine. I left a little later than usual, close to 4:00, and just steps into Westbrook I spotted a sun dog in the blue sky. It’s rare to see parhelion (actually it was a parhelia…I only saw one dog) this early. I associate sun dogs with winter, but clearly there were ice crystals in the atmosphere.

That would have been enough, but shortly after entering the ravine, we saw a sign taped to a tree – ALERT! Giant Alaskan Zebra Spider on the loose in Whitemud Creek Ravine. Smirk. As we laughed about this, I casually looked further down the trail and saw the spider, hanging in the tree. Yeah, it was fake of course, and sparkly, but I still gasped, ’cause I’m an idiot.

I love that someone took the time to plan this, and execute it. Had we been walking from the other direction, or at a different time of day, we probably wouldn’t have seen it. There is ALWAYS one thing – sometimes it’s a wonderfully unexpected scene like this, or maybe just a bit of beautifully lit foliage or a perfectly posed squirrel, but whatever it is, I’m meant to see it. My role as a walker is to witness. I’m not always conscious of my role, but when I see it, whatever it is, I know.

Today was a two-fer: a sun dog and an awesome piece of public vandalism and/or guerrilla art. Interesting that this year there have been unrelated multiple eruptions of this sort of thing in the river valley and ravines. The fairy houses in Mill Creek Ravine and Whitemud Ravine. Trees decorated in colourful woolies. Alaskan Zebra Spiders. I love it, but I wonder, what haven’t I seen?

Depending on where you are, it’s peak fall. There is an even distribution of green leaves, fully-foliated trees, completely defoliated trees (Green Ash, I’m looking at you), and a beautiful carpet of multi-coloured leaves along the trails. Now that we’ve had frost, I imagine things will speed up, but for now, it’s just stunning.

6C/4:45 to 6:00 pm

Tuesday, September 22: A windy but beautifully vivid walk through Whitemud Ravine. Up to the wetlands west and south of the powerline. Some ducks (mergansers), but no other activity. Surprised that no red-winged blackbirds were present. Their distinctive calls are the soundtrack of that wetland, and come to think of it, so many of the wetlands that I’ve visited. Wrong time of day, I guess, or maybe it was just too windy. The far wetland was choked with reeds, and I think we saw just one lonely duck.

Can’t remember the temperature exactly, but it was about 13C.

September is often quite nice, but we’ve had a chilly, cloudy month so far. Boo clouds. Go away. Yesterday however, was beautiful. Sunny, warmish, a reminder that summer is not yet over. I feel so uplifted by a blue sky.

Walked the Fort Edmonton path to the gorgeous footbridge and beyond. I think that short trail north of the bridge is called Patricia Ravine, with its hellacious stairs leading to Wolf Willow. We walked along the monkey path for awhile, which is overgrown and in spots, quite wet. At the end, there is a type of hoodoo-like hill, which we could have taken I suppose but I opted for a bike path running alongside it. That only took us so far. The path drops off dramatically, and with the muddy conditions, too precarious to attempt. Happy that Tom tested that theory. Even happier that he lived to tell the tale.

Once again the river was spotted with canoes and the trails were full of walkers and the occasional biker. One guy and his kid (on bikes) narrowly missed a falling (and very large) branch, which could have resulted in lethal accident had it bonked them on their heads, or ours. Friday it was a cougar in Glenora, Saturday a branch-flinging tree. Nature is dangerous, man.

Funny how that trail seems so much shorter now that Maggie isn’t with me. I say that with sadness, but also with the acknowledgement that dogs stop and start, and need regular dips in the water, which can make a trail seem longer than it actually is. I was always so conscious of her physical state. Sometimes she’d be into a longer walk, and other times I could feel her anxiety. Now, she’s just content to wander from one comfy spot to another, but still likes to play around in the yard. I miss her doggy presence, but it was nice to see at least as many dogs on the trail as people, and even one in a canoe. Dogs are calming. Cougars are not.

3:00(ish) to 5:30/21C

A little early…but the colour changes are striking. The annual fight between green, yellow and red begins…

A 90 minute walk in Whitemud Ravine South. Wanted to walk to Blackmud Ravine via the south trail but it was impassable. Have to drive to the entrance off 23rd, I guess.

HOT and colourful in the ravine on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

2:00-3:30PM/27C