An Easy Hike at Brown Lowery Provincial Park
It's the longest day of the year. Happy Summer Solstice!
While the picture-perfect rocky mountains get a lot of attention, there are hundreds of other natural areas in Alberta that are worth exploring.
Alberta is home to more than 400 provincial parks and protected areas that span 2.8 million hectares. Interestingly, there is a park or protected area within an hour’s drive of every single community in Alberta.
This week, we’re headed to Brown Lowery Provincial Park, a gem in the Foothills located 27 kilometres northwest of Turner Valley, or about a 45 minute drive from downtown Calgary.
It’s a great spot if you’re looking to go outside and avoid the mountain crowds/traffic. We also highly recommend a visit if you’re looking for a wander that doesn’t take all day or something more mellow to explore with people new to hiking or little legs.
Brown Lowery offers 12 km of easy to moderate walking/hiking trails wonderfully maintained by volunteers at the 300 Group Trail Maintenance Association (shoutout to all the people across Alberta who do quiet behind-the-scenes work maintaining the places so many of us love.)
The park is equipped with outhouses at the small parking lot and well-marked trail maps at every junction (which again adds to the appeal for those newer to hiking.)
We took the Wildrose West trail and wandered to Brown Lowery’s signature trail — the Lookout. We made it a loop, coming back the opposite way that we came and hiking just over 4 kilometres in total.
The lookout offers nice mountain views from one side and, if you zoom in on your camera (or bring binoculars) you’ll be treated to city views on the opposite side.
We saw a few other families on the recent Saturday afternoon we visited, several dogs (on leash, of course) and some flora and fauna. Tiger Lilies are already in full bloom and the park is popular amongst birders. Do pack your bear spray and keep your eyes out for animals —moose, elk, deer, cougar, black bears and lynx all call this area home.
The wild land where the provincial park sits today was donated to the province in 1969 by Home Oil. It had previously served as the location of a sawmill, and was used for oil and gas seismic surveys in the 1950s. In 1992, it was designated Brown Lowery Provincial Park — named after the founders of Home Oil, Robert Brown and Major James Robert Lowery.
As we said, Alberta is home to more than 400 provincial parks and protected areas and Brown Lowery is one of many natural spaces worth a visit.
P.S. It feels like just recently we were writing about the shortest day of the year, and the ritual of marking the changing of seasons. Now it’s already mid-June and today is Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. Happy official start of summer! We’re headed on our first camping trip of the season this weekend and so looking forward to a summer packed with outdoor adventure. If there’s anything in particular you’d like us to write about this summer, please leave a comment or hop into our subscriber chat.
