An even dozen Ramblers assembled for a weekday hike! We combined two of Mike Potters's "Turner Valley Tuneup" ridgewalks to make a rather nice loop. Are they "Tune Down" hikes if done in fall?

We set off at around 10 to ascend the east end of Long Prairie ridge.

Setting out on the Long Prairie ski trail

The ridge was gained quite quickly and we ambled off to the far western end, continuing on a little further than Potter's route. That took us down to the Death Valley trail for the return to the highway. Here we encountered wolf tracks, likely the same wolf that had made the tracks we saw nearby last week.


Wolf tracks on Death Valley loop trail

At the highway crossing we were entertained by the birders in the group. They had difficulty determining whether a group of very pretty purple birds were some sort of crossbill, or grosbeak, or something else.

Does anybody have a good photo?

Here is a picture for Carl!

Crossbills

We then went through the Sandy McNabb campground and approached the Sandy McNabb Hills, stopping for lunch just before ascending.

Lunchtime overlooking Sheep River

We then ascended to the top of the western hill. For such a small hill the panorama to the west is quite remarkable.


Group on the western Sandy McNabb Hill

We then continued on to the eastern hill and it's southern outlier, from which we had excellent views of the High Noon Hills.
Because the cars were parked to do Long Prairie, it made sense to bushwhack directly back from the col between the two hills. This worked out very well and we came out a few hundred meters from the cars.
The weather was very comfortable for hiking (about 8 degrees, and thankfully (after our experiences last weekend) there was little to no wind.
Thanks to Becky, Colleen, Kathy, Nancy, Arnold, Ghulam, John, Laszlo, Peter, Philip, Ron for making this my best attended hike, Carl (C/S)

And Finally, of course:

They shouldn't be playing on the Deadfall!