This Adventure is a hike with Wendy Ryan to Big Sagebrush — a largely pristine and undisturbed area in Bert Riggall’s cherished Waterton Area. Bert, the legendary guide and outfitter, established his guiding business in the area and brought his many clients and friends to it in the early 1900s. As well as having considerable experience of the wild lands of SW Alberta, Wendy knows Bert’s life and achievements well. She will lead us on an old outfitter trail through some of Alberta’s finest scenery and tell stories about Bert.

Forgetmenot Ridge is a high north-south foothills ridge which stands between higher mountains to the west and much lower hills and prairie to the east. There are great views in all directions.

Interesting wildlife and flowers can often be seen on Forgetmenot Ridge at this time of year.

Calling all lovers of mountains, wildflowers, hikes, and dogs! Join us for a moderate trek up Jumpingpound Summit in Kananaskis. Dogs (on a leash), children, and adults who are children-at-heart are all invited to enjoy the woods, wildflowers, summit views, and company on this favourite jaunt.

The 2^nd Annual Adventure for Wilderness for Bob Patterson and Jim Campbell will be to circumnavigate the iconic Mount Rundle on Saturday June 27, 2021 by cycling from Banff up the Goat Creek Trail, down the Spray Lakes Road, though the Canmore Nordic Centre, to return on the south side of the Bow River to their starting point at Bow Falls. A mountain bike marathon of 40+ KM. A few scrapes and flats are fully anticipated though all to the good of conserving Alberta’s wildlife and wild places.

I’m turning 40 this year. Instead of buying a sports car I want to spend 40 hours doing something amazing in Alberta’s wild spaces. Forty kilometres by bike. Forty pitches of climbing. All in forty hours.

This is a half day urban field trip where we will look at buildings clad in fossils-rich limestones of the Tyndall Formation which is quarried at Tyndall, Manitoba. The Tyndall is Ordovician in age which is equivalent to 450 million years old. The field trip begins downtown Calgary where we will visit some historic buildings clad with Tyndall. Thereafter we will see ten blocks of Tyndall in front of the Safeway store in Kensington which allows us to see the Tyndall in three dimensions. Then we will go up to SAIT where a wide variety of fossils (corals, sponges, nautiloids, algae, pelecypods, brachiopods) are exquisitely preserved in the limestone which extensively clads the Senator Patrick Burns building. This field trip is family friendly; kids are welcome.

Want to test your endurance and hike 33 kilometres (about 20 miles) mostly along Lake Minnewanka in Banff, partly on a trail rarely walked by people because of its remoteness. Join a group of intrepid hikers who’ve been doing this long walk for the past 10 or 12 years, and let them organize the logistics of this “swap-the-keys-in-the-middle” hike. There is very little elevation gain or loss, but a couple of water fordings are part of the hike and water shoes are recommended. You could even challenge your family or friends, who may not believe that you can hike 20 miles in a day, to make a pledge to AWA if you complete the walk! Or you can use it as practice for going on the Camino next year. This outing makes a long day, with driving to the start and end points of the hike.

NOTE: If there is a lot of interest we will schedule a second Minnewanka Thru Hike.

Plateau Mountain is a prominent landmark in south western Alberta between the Livingstone Range to the west and the prairie to the east. It is a genuine plateau about eight kilometres long and one to two kilometres wide. Technically it qualifies as a nunatuk, an area of high land that stood above the ice sheet during the last ice age. Its broad wind-swept summit hosts some unusual wildflowers and geological features. It provides important grazing for a number of wildlife species. To the visitor the plateau can feel like arctic tundra during inclement weather, quite different to the alpine and subalpine to the west, and the prairie to the east. Plateau Mountain was declared an Ecological Reserve in 1991. It is a unique place.

This is a chance to see Plateau in some detail. We will be covering some of the route by mountain bike and the rest on foot. The views from the top are spectacular.

This is a two-part adventure combining an online presentation and an interpretive hike through the impressive badlands of Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park. This is an exclusive opportunity to virtually meet Dr. François Therrien, Curator of Dinosaur Palaeoecology at Royal Tyrrell Museum and attend his special presentation on the “Albertosaurus Bonebed of Dry Island.” The presentation will be enjoyed the evening of July 16, 2021 on your computer from the comfort of your home. The following day there will be an interpretative hike to the Albertosaurus bonebed and other sites at Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park.

Follow Sean this June July as he bikes around Alberta on a 3,500+ km odyssey, visiting the 164 parks formerly slated for delisting by the Government of Alberta in 2020. Sean will be posting regular updates, photos and videos from each park, telling the stories from this emerald archipelago that we came so close to losing.

The trip will end at #164 on the list, the Strathcona Science Provincial Park in Edmonton where we will celebrate the occasion with a picnic luncheon, to which supporters are invited to join in!

Join AWA Board Member Nathan Schmidt and AWA volunteers Alexa Escobar and Joel Forre as they tour some of the best birding locations in Calgary. Tours will talk about the basics of responsible birding as well as tips for species identification and other helpful birding resources.

This adventure will include several outings over the course of spring and early summer 2021, with each one highlighting a different location – check the Details section for dates and locations.

You may recall the wildfire in the “Ghost” last fall that almost got out of control and had the population of the Ghost Valley along Highway 40 on evacuation alert for almost a week. The wildfire is now under control and, after driving up the somewhat rough Transalta Road, we will hike through the gravel flats of the upper North Ghost Valley near Black Rock Mountain. Accompanied by wildfire expert Edward A. Johnson Ph.D., we will check out the burned and charred areas, looking for signs of new plant growth. We will learn how such fires start, how they spread and also how to best fight them. And we will better understand the benefits and also the damages that wildfires can cause.

This field trip is an all-day road trip beginning with visiting Frank Lake, near High River, which is a shallow water slough where hundreds of bird species have been identified. We will then drive past and view the nearby large abandoned Mazeppa gas plant. Driving southwards and then westwards of Stavely we will visit the Pine Coulee Reservoir and the beautiful Willow Creek Municipal Park nestled in the valley of Willow Creek. In the Porcupine Hills, we will stop by the site of an orphan gas well assigned to the Orphan Well Association for abandonment and site remediation. The trip will continue westwards over the crest of the Porcupine Hills, reviewing the underlying geology and enjoying stunning views in all directions. The trip ends in the village of Longview viewing oil-producing sites and discussing issues related to future wells abandonment and wellsites environmental remediation.

Please join us on Tuesday evenings* this summer for a season of social stewardship through Biodiversity Conservation in the Centennial Natureground and Whispering Woods – tucked away in a corner of Brentwood, in northwest Calgary.

* the bees will run in the evenings through July; starting in August they will switch to Tuesday mornings

Help us to clean the province by choosing locations throughout the summer and picking up all the garbage that is potentially harming wildlife and the ecosystems in our area.

We are hoping to gather a crew of at least 10 people to help us out, but if you are unable to join our crew there are some other ways you can participate below!

How you can participate:

1. Join our crew- minimum donation $20, fundraising goal (minimum $200 including your donation), join us on at least one crew pick up day or coordinate your own
2. Donate to our cause –any amount welcome! our fundraising goal is $2000 by the end of August so help us spread the word!
3. Request of a location you’d like to see cleaned up (minimum donation $50) – if you know of a spot with a lot of garbage that has been bothering you every time you see it you can sponsor us to come clean it up!
4. Do your own garbage pickup – minimum donation $20, post picture of your garbage bags

Crew pick up days: Throughout the summer we will select locations that are large enough to allow for safe social distancing for picking up garbage. We will provide garbage bags, gloves, sanitizer & coordinate with the city to pick up collected garbage. Come and join us at a designated location for approximately 1 hour of clean up.

Share your adventures in Alberta’s winter wilderness through the art of photography!

We’re at it again and 58 bee boxes suitable for Alberta’s Native Bees have been produced for this year’s adventure! This year we expanded the adventure to make Bee Box kits for 3 grade one classes at FFCA – NWE and Girl Guides of the 163rd Calgary Unit to work on a citizen science project for their Lady Baden Powell Award. Last year, our boxes got out all around the province: Calgary, Canmore, Lake Louise, Red Deer, Edmonton and Rocky Mountain House! Have one in your backyard too!

Ever wanted to hike through a cool stream in a slot canyon on a warm summer day – an hour’s drive from Calgary? Further up the valley you can visit a geology teaching site where three rock formations meet up, all several hundred million years old. Sign up to walk with Heinz up Jura Creek, and maybe even scout out the “trail” to Loder Peak. It’s a pleasant walk along the creek above the canyon, and for the way down you may choose the alternative forest trail. It’s about a 5 hours’ outing, and water shoes are essential for the canyon hike, plus some basic scrambling skills.

Alexa and Joel will be climbing 21 mountains in 2021, raising funds to help defend Wild Alberta!

If you’d like to follow along with them, or even join them on a few of these ascents, check out their adventure! They’ll be posting updates from their enterprise, and giving heads up about upcoming peaks, so if you see one you’d like to come along on, there will be space for a few fellow alpinists!