Exploring around Drumheller – dinosaurs and a suspension bridge
I suggested to my daughter yesterday that we go to Drumheller for lunch, and it turned into an excellent day. So excellent that I’ve had to break it up into 2 blog posts.
We hit the road at about 09:30. It’s just over an hour’s drive, and there’s a whole lot of flat country along Highways 567 and 9 west of Drumheller.
Highway 9 west of Rosebud.
We’d seen some snow remaining from the blizzard 2 days earlier, and the size of the some of the drifts were surprising.
Things got ugly in a hurry east of Rosebud, and we saw 2 cars still off in the weeds. That snowplow seemed to be working in the wrong area.
At 10:15 we stopped at Horseshoe Canyon, which I first saw in 1958. It’s much more developed now, and there are trails down into it.
Horseshoe Canyon has always fascinated me, and some day I’ll get here when the time and weather are both conducive to having a better look at it.
The huge hole that Drumheller sits at the bottom of (it’s the valley of the Red Deer River) is quite amazing.
On our wander around Drumheller, the world’s largest dinosaur was a must-stop. It was built in 2000 at a cost of about $1.6 million.
There are dinosaurs of all sizes and types around Drumheller, and before going into the visitor centre, I detoured for a photo of this particularly cute one.
For $4 you can climb up into the world’s largest dinosaur’s mouth. A portion of the revenue from the attraction go into the World’s Largest Dinosaur Legacy Fund – to date, more than $540,000 has gone back into Drumheller and area projects.
It’s a pretty cool view from the jaws of the beast! 🙂
The big dinosaur is part of a very nice park that includes other attractions including a water spray park. The big guy is the furthest in this line (actually, they call it “she”).
Our chosen place for lunch, Bernie and the Boys Bistro, was reporting on their Facebook page that due to the blizzard, their truck with supplies hadn’t arrived and they may not be open. But we drove over for a look, and they were.
Since my son’s name is Steve, I had to try their Steve’s Dad’s Burger – a big patty with cheddar and mozzarella cheese, and a hot and creamy Diablo sauce. It was excellent.
I really enjoyed the atmosphere at Bernie and the Boys. It’s a bit 1950s diner, a theme I love, and there are lots of neat little touches like the hot dog on the fan above our table.
Andrea had vaque memories of a suspension bridge across the Red Deer River, and the women at the visitor centre gave us a map showing the way to the Star Mine Suspension Bridge a few miles away at Rosedale.
The 117-meter-long bridge (that’s 334 feet long) was originally built in 1931 to access the Star Coal Mine. It was used until 1957, and the following year when the mine closed, the Alberta government rebuilt the bridge as an historic attraction.
Far above the Red Deer River, one of the hundreds of coal mine workings in the area can be seen. In dry weather, some good hiking is available from the end of the bridge, but the trails were deep mud yesterday.
Looking down into the Red Deer River. None of the people fishing near the bridge seemed to be having any luck.
Along the Valley Mine Driving Tour, the Drumheller Rotary Club has installed about 20 very good interpretive panels at old coal mine sites. At many of the locations, you would never know that a mine or even a town had existed.
I’m a big fan of hoodoos, and the small East Coulee Hoodoo Park was our next stop. They’re really small compared to the ones I hiked into near Muncho Lake this summer, but they’re much more accessible.
There are some wonderful formations in the sandstone. Where there was no metal sidewalk, the trail was extremely slippery!
Looking down from the upper part of the walk.
Our next stop was the Atlas Coal Mine National Historic Site, but I’ll tell you about that in my next post.
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