Clouds at Red Rock Coulee

Two friends (Sandy and Janet) and I left Calgary early morning on 20 September 2013, and had to reach Elkwater in the Cypress Hills (not that far from the Saskatchewan border), several hours' drive away, where we were going to stay in a little rustic cabin for three nights. On the way there, we stopped at Red Rock Coulee, and you can see just a tiny bit of the area in my photo above. Actually, this particular photo was taken on 23 September, when we called in again, this time walking down the hillside and into one of the coulees. While my friends searched for Lichens, I wandered around, taking photos of the scenery and anything else I came across. While we were down there, the sky had filled with some rather nice clouds, which I appreciated. However, the extremely high winds were not pleasant at all, to say the least! In fact, strong winds were everywhere in many parts of SE Alberta. I was expecting a lot of my photos to be blurry, as I could barely keep my balance or hold my camera, but amazingly, most were OK. This is Rattlesnake territory, too, but fortunately we didn't come across any!

"The main feature of this natural landscape is the huge red boulders; some measuring 2.5 m across. They are scattered over a relatively small distance. Bedrock is close to the surface in this area, covered by only a thin layer of soil. Water erosion has carved the landscape over time and a badlands topography has formed in places. The bands of colour visible in the exposed bedrock are made of dark gray shales, greenish and gray sandstones, bentonitic clays and thin bands of ironstone.

The most striking features of this landscape are the round reddish boulders. These are sandstone concretions and at up to 2.5 m in diameter, they are among the largest in the world. The boulders were formed in prehistoric seas as layers of sand, calcite and iron oxide collected around a nucleus formed by shells, leaves or bones. The concretions grew larger as the circulating waters deposited more layers. The reddish colour comes from iron oxide." From Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Rock_Coulee