uralcrscentfalls

Crescent Falls 2008

Crescent Falls is about 20 minutes past Nordegg on the David Thompson Highway, which extends from Rocky Mountain House to the Columbia Icefeilds Parkway, in the heart of the Alberta Rockies.
	The furry guy in the sidecar is "Han Solo, Captain of the Millennium Falcon" (that's his actual registered name)We usually just call him Solo.
	We made a couple stops along the way to the falls, this picture was taken about 15km up a winding, steep loose gravel road on the way up to the crescent falls campsite (would have been pretty sketchy for a 2 wheeler but it was a lot of fun with a sidecar)
	Here we are at the campsite. Nice clean campgrounds with secluded sites for tents or smaller RV's. The ride into the grounds was a little too rugged (including a small stream crossing) for larger RV's
	Not sure how early we got up as I forgot to bring a watch, but no one else in the campground was up yet and it was pretty chilly. We took an easy trail for a while then decided to take the road less traveled and headed way down towards the river in an attempt to reach the lower falls
	We made it to the lower falls, there was no real trail to speak of but we kept along the edge of the river, crossed once and climbed over a few boulders along the way. It doesn't look like too many people come down this way. Can't reach the upper falls from here.
	We had to traverse about 100 metres of loose shale, it was pretty darn steep and we had to run across or we would slide down into the river. The fun part is, everything we had to do to get to the falls , we had to do again to get back out of the gorge.
	Now we are back on the trail, this picture is of the upper and lower falls. Solo has proven to be a very proficient rock hopper and trail finder.
	This is the view from the top of the upper falls
	And this is the view from the base of the upper falls. This was a lot easier to get to than the lower falls. There was a nice big inukshuk at the edge of the water.
To fill in the blanks here, we headed back to camp for lunch and then set off again towards the upper Bighorn falls. It was a very pleasant hike with a couple river crossings.

	Next morning, time to go home. It's chilly and I can see my breath. Weatherman says it's supposed to rain pretty hard here in the Nordegg area.
	A couple hours away and viola, sunshine. this picture was taken somewhere around Drayton Valley, AB.
	Stopped in Calmar for a snack, shared a doughnut with Solo and we were on our way again.
	15 minutes from home, clouds are back. still pretty warm though.
This was my first real trip with the ural, I have taken trips on a bike without a sidecar before and that was great but this time was more fun because I could bring the dog with me. Solo settled into the sidecar quickly and was either hanging his head around the windscreen or curled up in a ball on the floor mat.It seems these Russian sidecar-bikes can go places most other vehicles can only dream of, and they do it with a lot more style.
a few quick points: -seatbelt your dog -you can pack a bunchof stuff in that sidecar -mechanically I have had no problems and I hear the new bikes are even better. -be prepared to talk to everyone that passes by -top speed is about 90km/hr so relax and enjoy the ride