Red Rock Canyon: Nature’s Open Heart Surgery

When you look down Red Rock Canyon towards the parking lot, it appears the green Earth busted an angry vein and ripped open its heart to blue sky and mountains. We were confronted by this rocky bloody slash in the earth, after driving 15 km. through

Red Rock Canyon in Blakiston Valley. Waterton Lake National Park, Alberta 2012. Photo by J. Chong

Blakiston Valley, along a winding, peaceful road in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta.

It’s initially startling to see Red Rock Canyon.

Peering down canyon to near dry glacial stream during summer. Red rock is Grinnell argillite. Red Rock Canyon, Waterton Lake National Park AB 2012. Photo by J. Chong

Although the red-purple canyon walls are dry under the blazing sun, the vivid colours draw you in, like a bumpy, long and multi-hued bruise.

What makes some of the rock redness strange, is the rock, Grinnell argillite, when it gets wet, has a slick, earthy terra-red colour.  From afar, the water mirrors like strange, deep red blood oozing from underneath the ground.  But closer, it’s just clear water skimming over the rocks. Under the right natural light, the glacial water shimmers deep turquoise-indigo blue– like a jewel backlit by a mauve canvas.

We walked along a path that edges the whole red lip of the canyon.  The hiking guide book said it was a 20 minute hike. Right.

I must have loitered around Red Rock Canyon for almost 2 hrs. to shoot photos.  A few people dragged down their tripods and SLR cameras onto  the canyon floor.  Others

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 hopped, danced or wandered happily along the canyon bed.  I found simple photo-shooting from above, a challenge with tree shade, uneven sunlight dancing down around the rock walls and glaring white sunlight above the canyon edge.

Eons ago a river, now reduced to stream, carved out a canyon. Since the canyon is near the junction of two mountain passes and valleys, it was a popular stopping site for the aboriginals and later, for explorers.

Wildflowers along our hike from Red Rock Canyon. Waterton Lakes National Park, AB 2010. Photo by J. Chong

We were there during early September. At this time in late summer, the stream was at its lowest point which was ideal for bedrock wandering.  And less pools of blood stream water trickery bubbling over the stones.

Red Rock Canyon is ringed by mountain peaks thrusting up, some with red-green striations. Argillite rock was created millions of years ago from hardened mud. Both colours are caused by iron deposit where red mineral, hermatite is the oxidized state, whereas green is chlorite mineral that is the unoxidized state.

Red Rock Canyon. Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta 2012. Photo by J. Chong

Our 9 km. hike from the canyon area  through the valley forest, was graced with ever-changing views of mountains with red mauve blush of argillite across some of peaks, peeping through some hanging valleys and forested sides.

Red Rock Canyon –a place to hang out under different light play and seasons without  snow cover. A place that vibrates in life colour and conjures up metaphors of  menstruation,  Earth heart line,  rippling rock musculature and mountain pulse.

Interesting Reading:
Parks Canada. Waterton’s Scenic Parkways. Includes some advice. Parks Canada manages Canada’s official national parks.

Waterton Lakes National Park: Geology and Geomorphology.