Writing On Stone

Writing on Stone is a provincial park south east of Lethbridge, not far from the border of Montana. We went there yesterday (Mon 7th) as it's [another] public holiday in Canada. It's very unusual as it has lots of rock art and carvings. At one time it was inhabited by the Blackfoot people who would come on "vision quests" after fasting for several days. The site also has lots of hoodoos which are the strange rock formations you can see in the pictures. It looked like something out of Star Wars/Trek to me!
It was really, really hot out there and we made the mistake of going along the hoodoo trail to see the rock art during the hottest part of the day (around 4pm). The guide at the interpretive centre was obviously at bit worried that we weren't put off that the temperature along the trail was around 40c and loaned us hats! Rattlesnakes were another warning as one had recently bitten someone's pet dog who had sniffed down its hole. The guide also pointed out the tap so we could stock up on water. Sadly we wished we had listened to her and gone along later as we felt like we were doing our own vision quest as we were all feeling faint and sick in the heat (closest I've ever been to proper sunstroke, oops).
But we made it back again and the Milk River was beckoning - it was lovely and cool, but not cold like at Waterton. We all jumped in fully clothed and quite happily swam around in there for at least an hour. It was 6pm when we finally got out, but it was still so hot that we dried off quickly.