Our early start and rapid pace meant that we were now finished our day's hike with quite a lot of time to just hang around. After returning back to the eastern trailhead of the Carthew-Alderson trail to retrieve Cassándra's car, we decided to treat ourselves to something tasty. We'd noticed that the Waterton townsite seemed to be brimming with many little restaurant and food outlets of all sorts. Through my web research on hiking in preparation for our visit, I had noticed a few references to a place called Weiners of Waterton. The references had indicated that although it was fast-food type of fare, it was of the highest quality and especially fresh with regards to ingredients. We decided to check it out.
Weiners of Waterton
Weiners of Waterton is located at the end of a log-facaded multi-business building (along with a Subway, a laundromat, and a jewelry shop) on Wind Flower Ave in downtown Waterton. The storefront may have been small, but the line of clients was not. Clearly this was a popular spot.
The Weiners Crew
It was soon apparent - both from signs and from the activities going on behind the counter - that Weiners strove to differentiate itself by using locally-sourced ingredients, and by preparing with those ingredients on-demand and in-house. Even the hot dog buns were being baked on-premises. Impressive.
My hot dog and sweet potato fries order was, as you might expect, quite excellent. Highly recommended.
Evidence of Storminess
Satiated after our visit to Weiners of Waterton, we returned to our campsite at the Crandall Mountain campground. We noticed damp ground and a smattering of white stuff in the shade of the trees. This white stuff turned out to be bits of hail, indicating that a fairly robust storm must have passed through at some point during the afternoon. The forecast had called for possible afternoon showers and isolated thunderstorms, so this was not all that suprising. I was glad that this storm hadn't tracked over the path of our hike.
courtesy JInnes
courtesy JInnes
After a bit of lounging around, we decided to take a short exploratory evening drive up to the end of the Red Rock Parkway, to see what sights might be easily seen. We were suitably impressed with the deep reds of the bedrock at the bottom of Red Rock Creek. The color was due to the presence of red argillite rock - a rock that is present all over Waterton and Glacier National Parks, but which seemed especially brilliant red here.
courtesy JInnes
Red Canyon and Anderson Peak
courtesy JInnes
courtesy JInnes
After observing Red Rock Creek and the surrounding landscape, we drove back to the Crandall Mountain campground and prepared to turn in for the night.
Before hitting the sack, we debated what outing we'd do next in Waterton. I had lined up many possibilities: Crypt Lake, Avion Ridge, Mt Blakiston and the Hawkins Horseshoe. I wanted something that added a bit of challenge on top of yesterday's Carthew-Alderson outing, but not excessively so. I was attracted to the off-trail scramble route of the Hawkins Horseshoe, but I wasn't completely sure that everyone in our group would be completely comfortable with it - not at least until we got a few more outings under our belt.
I turned my attention to another well-recommended outing, this one at an intermediate difficulty point between the Hawkins Horseshoe route and the Mt Carthew ascent we did the day before: the route, called the Akamina Ridge route, was a 20-ish kilometre loop that involved some off-trail travel, a short bit of moderate scrambling, but was otherwise fairly easy. After a bit of discussion with Jenn and Cassándra, we agreed that this route was the best choice for tomorrow. Click 'next' in order to read all about it!
