The Valley Trail

April 25, 2021

Instead of listening to the boys fight over one hot wheel (we have 329) 90% of the day, we decided to pack up and head to the Nicolle Flats area of Buffalo Pound Provincial Park.

We are getting pretty good at packing up for picnic lunches and afternoon trips. It gets easier every time, and once you forget something ( ahem – diapers and wipes ) you usually don’t forget them again. Also we pack the same thing every time – kids get a sandwich choice and a juice box (and 1000 snacks). We’re going for simple and easy here.

The Valley Trail is 1.5 km, hooking up with The Dyke Trail it will take you on a 2.1 km loop.

The boys found walking sticks that were bigger than them and insisted they take them…cool, cool. The trail is sheltered out of the wind (if any) and goes along the Moose Jaw river. Lots of prairie grass, trees, and no hills, with trail signage along the way.

We always makes games of finding the signs, and then looking for the animals that are on the signs. That day we spotted lots of animal traces, from nests, beaver dams, and beaver stumps.

We stopped for lunch at a bench around the halfway mark.

While passing the beavers office (picture below) , I went to the rivers edge to see the dam, so focused on a possible beaver siting, I looked down and saw ants on my sneakers EVERYWHERE. It was because I was standing on a massive ANT HILL. I screamed, and cried on the inside. The image still haunts me. For the rest of the trail P thought the ants were ‘chasing us’, same P, same.

The end of The Valley Trail takes you to The Dyke Trail to loop back to the trail entrance. We actually kept walking to the Homestead (snack stop) and took that trail back to the parking lot. We ended up completing 3.25 km (possibly a new record).

As always the valley views are just lovely. The hills, the trees, the marsh, there are so many picturesque landscapes.

The trail loop was definitely bike-able, and that is something I’m sure we’ll try in the future.

Some quotes from M during the hike:

• “I can’t go any farther”
• “Why did we come so far?”
• “I was tired before we even started”

We had a great afternoon, the trails were quiet, the weather was overcast with a minimal breeze, and no ticks to report. All three slept on the drive home, and that’s a beautiful thing.