First camping of 2011

Planning a camping foray in Alberta is always fun, if you care at all about the weather.  But trying to pick the first weekend to go, especially if you want to book the site in, say March, is challenging.  I'd say this year, we did well, but not spectacularly well.

We decided this year to go with a mix of car camping and back country, so of course this first trip was car camping.  Stuart managed to get us exactly the same site at Boulton Creek that we'd like last year.  It's away from the powered sites (no listening to some Winnebago's furnace kick in at 2 a), right next to the washrooms, had a fairly level pad and reasonable privacy.

Of course, being out of practice, it took us much later to get out of town than originally planned and we forgot to pack a few things; the tarp and the crib board being the stand-outs.  This trip convinced us that it's time to buy duplicates of the necessary things and just keep two boxes: one for car camping and one for back country.  We may not be swimming in money, but surely we can afford a few small conveniences?  :))  Otherwise, all the lists in the world can't seem to stop us from forgetting to move something from one kit to the other!

On our drive into Kananaskis we saw all kinds of mule deer and a the biggest herd of sheep I've come across in a long time.  It wasn't too surprising though, because all the way in, we were commenting on how much snow is left.  There was white stuff quite thick on the peaks and surprisingly far down.  Even in the campground, which isn't really that high up, there were still piles of snow in all the shady spots.

We drove in and out of rain all the way to the campground, but our timing was good.  We had clear skies to set up camp and make dinner.  We did lemon and herb pork sausages with baked (fired?) potatoes on the campfire that night, with cider and scotch and s'mores for dessert.  And it was good that we'd brought some water with us, 'cause they were having troubles with the well.  We never heard exactly what the problem was, but there was no water in the campground all weekend.  We got drinking water from a tank they brought in and had to drive to the Elkwood (Elkwater?) campground for showers.

We went to bed with partly cloudy skies, but at some point overnight the clouds rolled in and it started to rain.  Fortunately, it was our first trip with the zip together barrel bags that Stuart bought for our anniversary, so I could snuggle up to my sweetie to keep warm!  When we woke up, it was very quiet in the campground, with few people leaving their tents or trailers more than necessary.  The luck was in again and the rain tapered off long enough to have breakfast under the newly purchased tarp without getting too cold or wet.  Then we crawled back into the tent for a morning of reading and napping.

The weather was with us again and the rain swapped out with some sunshine at about the time we started thinking about lunch.  It continued to hold off after we ate, so we decided to go for a walk - nothing challenging, we strolled down to the general store to ask about showers and then did the short "interpretive trail" around Boulton Creek.  I don't remember seeing a sign, but it's maybe 2km?  The trail was mostly soggy, with a few outright muddy bits and a little bit of snow.  It started raining again, but we had the umbrellas and Ursa doesn't care, so that was fine.  We saw some creeks and ponds that were still quite low, but Boulton Creek was full and rushing!

After our walk, we decided to drive over for showers before dinner.  And what do you know?  The rain cleared off again in time for dinner!  We started the fire again and this time did mixed veggies (sweet potato, onion, carrot, red pepper and olives) in tin foil and heated up chorizo.  Dessert was more s'mores, but with hot chocolate and Bailey's to drink.  Across the road from us was a group of tween girls with a couple of supervisors - we thought maybe Girl Guides, but never confirmed it.  They were fascinated by Ursa, pretty quiet for young girls although they sang a lot (which I quite liked, since at least they were tuneful. But some killjoy bellowed "Quiet" when they did one rowdy song at about 8p.  Dork!)  Ursa was still damp when we went to bed and the night was cooling off rapidly.  I fully expected her to pull it off, but I draped a blanket over Ursa in case she was finding it chilly.  Imagine my surprise when she not only stayed under it, but brought it with her later in the night to snuggle up with me!

We took Ursa for lots of little walks around the place and got a lot of variations on the "look, it's a bear" comment.  I KNOW we named her Ursa for a reason, but honestly, I was pretty tired of it by the end.

It had basically stopped raining on Sunday, but it didn't warm up enough to dry out the tent much.  We had breakfast, packed up camp and stopped for another shower.  Then we drove up to the Kananaskis Lakes and had a walk along part of the Upper Lake shore.  The water was the lowest we've seen it yet, but that didn't stop all the fisherman.  I have no idea what you'd catch up there - do they stock it?  Coming back along the shore involved some mild scrambling over rocky outcroppings and Ursa was a trooper.  We haven't pushed her to figure out her physical capabilities, but watching her jumping and climbing, I think we'd need about a 4m fence, if there was something on the other side she really wanted.  :P

Once we'd loaded back up in the car, we decided to take the Spray Lakes road into Canmore and get Granny Bees salads at the Grizzly Paw for lunch.  It's pretty much reached "traditional" status for us to do that.  It also meant that we could stop in a the Mut Hut to look at rain jackets for Ursa.  It's becoming apparent that whether we commission it or do it ourselves, custom made is going to be the way to go.  Much to my surprise, as we passed through Moose Flats on our way out of the Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, I actually SAW a moose.  It was in the trees, right beside the highway, so I didn't get a great look, but I think it was a juvenile male.  And coming past Spray Lakes, we saw an osprey doing aerobatics in the thermals off the lake.  Best wildlife sighting trip in at least a decade!