Cypress Hills: Centre Block

Trip Date: August 2010

A group of Sarah's friends from Regina were going camping in Cypress Hills for a weekend, so we decided to tag along. I hadn't been to Cypress Hills since I was a little kid and honestly I don't remember much, if anything, about being there. The Cypress Hills area is actually an interprovincial park that straddles the Alberta/Saskatchewan border and is Canada's only interprovincial park. The park is broken into three different sections; the Alberta side, the West Block and the smaller Centre Block, which are both located entirely in Saskatchewan. We would be staying in the Centre Block of the park, which is about 425km southeast of Calgary along Highway 21. The Cypress Hills are the highest point in Canada between the Rocky Mountains and Labrador. The weekend seemed to go by so fast I really didn't get to explore the park as fully as I would have liked. I guess that means I'll have to go back at some point. Hopefully that happens sooner than later!

A map showing the different sections of the park

Welcome to Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park

Cow Moose and her calf

A section of the Trans-Canada Trail

Bergamot wildflowers

A section of the trail

Trans-Canada Trail marker

Bergamot

Western White Yarrow

Lavender

Rome attempting to find some shade

Rob, Mike, Kyle, and I wanted to do a little fishing so we drove down to Cypress Lake

It would appear the water level was quite high and we didn't catch a damn thing!

This outhouse was completely covered in Fishflies

Enter at your own risk!

The girls wanted to go horseback riding

Marla

Lookout Point (1,275m)

Bald Butte Lookout (1,392m). This the highest point in Saskatchewan.

Rome on another section of the Trans-Canada Trail

In July 2016 we finally ended up back in Cypress Hills, this time on the Alberta side near Elkwater. A group of us spent an extended weekend camping and playing in the park. You can read about that adventure by visiting this post titled, Cypress Hills.