Thursday, May 17, 2012

May 17 – At Elk Island NP Day 3

We had another day much like yesterday, up late, a short hike, lunch and another short hike.

Last night it rained quite hard starting at dinner and the forecast wasn’t great for today but it turned out to be a pleasant sunny day in the high teens.

All of the hikes here seem very similar. Lots of aspen forest, a bit of marsh and lots of beaver ponds.

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There was only one muddy section crossing this beaver dam, even after all the rain.

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After lunch, driving to the next hike we saw our next large animal right beside the road.

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Two down. We never did see any elk.

The next hike was a 5 km loop of much the same except there were tracks and piles of stuff everywhere. Mostly bison but according to the brochure some were elk. We never did see any actual animals from the trail though.

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More wide open marsh and beaver ponds where I would have thought we would see something but not even any beaver. There was lots of evidence of the beavers at work.

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This part of the trail seemed to be very popular with the animals as it was covered in you know what. They must like the view.

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Afterwards, we rewarded ourselves for all our hard work by going to the cafe at the golf course inside the park and splitting a bison burger and fries. The meat was kind of dry.

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Off to Edmonton tomorrow. It is supposed to be a cold night.

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