Votier Flats

I had a day to myself and I desperately needed to see something other than Strathmore. I thought hiking a trail in Calgary’s very pretty Fish Creek Provincial Park would fit the bill. It didn’t turn out to be as much fun as I had hoped.

The cleanest and best maintained part of the park turned out to be immediately around the public restrooms. I mean, this is a good thing. You don’t want it to spread around at your funeral that you died on your way either in to or out of doing a Big Job. But the rest of the trails there… Arf.

I started out with a tactical error. Well, errors. I was practicing using my my video camera for an upcoming project so I needed a hand free for videoing myself. It made using walking sticks impractical. The penguin shuffle worked well enough on flat ground, but I was in trouble when I hit the hills, eventually causing me to turn back.

That hill at bottom right, that was the only clear spot, which is why I stopped there for a photo. Any other place and I would have gone arse over tea kettle. This was shameful because:

1. I have metal crampons I could have put on my boots, but I left them in the car. It would have made the paths much safer for me if I hadn’t been lazy. I just didn’t expect them to be so icy.
   
2. I also had walking sticks with me, but I failed to take them along because I didn’t want to juggle them with a camera. I should have prioritized safety.

I will definitely be better prepared for the next outing. In the case of this day’s outing, I went out because I badly needed to see some running water and hoped the creek would be open.

I had very little luck in that department. All of the snow in the foreground should be open, moving water. It isn’t. I left more depressed than I arrived because I had my heart set on hearing a babbling brook or such. Traffic noise from a nearby highway was all I got as this park sits in a city.

The AllTrails app advertises Votiers Flats as a pleasant winter hike. I’d say it really isn’t. The maintenance of the trails is mediocre at best, the scenery is lacklustre, the creek which is a large feature in the trail is frozen over, and the city noise ruins the solitude. I may try the trail again in the summer, but not ever in the winter again. That’s what Kananaskis is for, even with the long-ish drive.

Images made with my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra phone. I had Ray’s Canon EOS 7D with me, but was scared to go over on ice trying to pull it out.