Country Road, Take Me... Camping!
Day 1: Arriving to Pocaterra!
We woke up excited to get to Kananaskis Country and gobbled up a yummy breakfast before packing up all of our stuff and moving out of our rooms. We then loaded up the bus and headed off to our campsite. We were deep in the Rocky Mountains and headed up a long trail into the woods to our site. To our astonishment, we had a beautiful view of a large mountain from the main area of our campsite! We headed off to find the perfect spot to pitch our tents, set up our sleeping bags and put up the badminton and volleyball nets in order to start our week long tournaments! Together we cooked a delicious supper of chicken kebobs, fruit platters, meat and cheese trays, salads, and yummy desserts. We sliced, diced and cooked up a storm! After our first delicious camping supper, we chopped wood and made our own huge campfire! At the fire, we roasted marshmallows and made a Canadian favourite campfire snack - S’mores! S’mores are roasted marshmallows on a cracker covered in chocolate… Yum!! The stars came out and we could see the Big Dipper, the Milky Way and even shooting stars! We got out the game “werewolf” and played late into the night, until 1 AM ! With sleepy eyes we headed to our tents and got snuggled up, knowing we could sleep in tomorrow!
Day 2: Mountain Biking Adventure
Waking up to the sun shining on the mountain and birds chirping, we helped cook a yummy breakfast of egg and sausage breakfast sandwiches to fuel us for our big mountain biking adventure! We geared up in our helmets and got our bicycles ready to head out onto the mountain pathways. It began to rain a little, but that couldn’t stop us from heading out on the trails. We biked through the twists and turns of the forest until we were tired and then headed back to camp. A couple of us ended up with battle wounds, but we pushed through and finished our bike ride nonetheless! After biking we arrived back at camp to a warm lunch of spicy Thai, chicken and beef instant noodles. We spent the rest of the afternoon advancing in our volleyball tournament and cooking for supper, tonight we had spaghetti! Our Italians took charge and we had the perfect pasta. Again, we ended the night with a campfire, this time our teachers taught us how to cook spider dogs (hot dogs with ends that curl when they’re cooked to look like spiders, how cool!) and of course, ended our night with a fun game of werewolf. We headed off to bed a bit earlier to get a good nights sleep before our big day exploring the town of Banff!
Day 3: Hiking Elbow Lake
Waking up to the smell of French Toast kick-started our hiking day. We filled our tummies and our water bottles and headed off to Elbow Lake to hike in the Canadian Rockies. Once we arrived at the trail head we packed our bags with everything we needed to have a picnic at the top of the mountain and then headed off up the trail! We saw a few wild animals, local flowers and beautiful views of the neighbouring mountains on the way up. Once we reaches halfway the trail opened up to a beautiful green lake with amazing views of the surrounding mountains and we found the perfect spot for a picnic. Those of us who dared to venture further went on to reach the peak of the mountain while those of us who wanted to enjoy the lake were able to go swimming, lounge around and explore the perimeter of the lake. We even saw horses on the trail that took a bath in the lake and made friends with Canadians who were backcountry camping here. At the top of the mountain we found patches of snow and were able to have a snowball fight! The snow was nice and chilly to cool us off from our trek up the mountain. The views from the top were incredible! We headed back down the mountain and said goodbye to one of our friends that had to leave early to go back to school, we surely will miss him! With heartfelt goodbyes we boarded the bus back to our campsite where we cooked a delicious supper and finished off the night with a birthday cake for Sarah! There is no better place to turn 19 then in the beautiful Canadian Rocky Mountains!
Day 4: Exploring the Iconic Town of Banff
Today started out with a fantastic breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and hash-browns before heading off to our full day of adventures in Banff. Arriving in Banff National Park for lunch time, we grilled up a good old fashion barbecue lunch of chicken burgers and hamburgers to fill our tummies before we went shopping. The next few hours were spent exploring the beautiful Banff Avenue. We bought some amazing souvenirs and spent some time looking up at the enormous Cascade Mountain which stands at the end of Banff Avenue! We then headed back to Pocaterra to have a delicious supper of tacos, veggies and fruit for dessert. Ending our night with marshmallows and hotdogs roasted by the open fire, we headed off to bed in order to wakeup early for tomorrows big adventures!!
Day 5: Horseback Riding at Lake Louise and the Columbia Ice Fields!
Today was an early start for the Horses! After eating a breakfast of yogurt and croissants, we headed out on the bus to either go horseback riding at Lake Louise or go visit the Columbia Ice fields. Those of us who chose horseback riding took off for an adventure up the mountain and back down into the waters of the famous Lake Louise. It was absolutely magical and for some of us, our first time riding a horse! After riding, we had a yummy BBQ by the lake and checked out the gift shops, scooping up souvenirs for our families and for ourselves. Those of us who went to the ice fields went up to the Alpines, (the highest mountains in the Rockies!) and took a specialized ice bus to the Athabasca Glacier where we stood on top of ice that is over 800ft deep! We learned a lot about how a lot of the World’s drinking water come from melting glaciers and were able to drink the water running down the ice! It was so fresh! On the glacier there were many flags so we were able to take pictures with Canada’s flag and the flags from our respective countries! For some of us, this was our first time ever touching ice! We tried not to slip on the ice and even had a small snowball fight! Afterwards we have a yummy BBQ and headed back to Lake Louise to meet up with our other friends. We stopped on the way to visit a few other bright and beautiful lakes! We learned that the blue that reflects from the lakes in the mountains is a reflection of rocks and ice, so cool! We ended our day by eating yummy pizza in Canmore and heading back for another fun campfire.
Day 6: Relaxing Day - Speed, Sports Tournaments & Dominos
Today was another sleep in day and we definitely took advantage and got our sleep! We woke up to the warm sun and cooked pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast we created a sports tournament of volleyball, badminton and hide and seek. We broke off into teams and competed all day until we had a winner! During hide and seek, we used the mud from around the river to create war paint and headed off to see the ultimate winner of today’s tournament! Some of us were so good at hiding that we played for two hours straight! After the sports tournaments ended, we broke out the cards and dominos. We learned a card game called Speed from our teachers and we began a tournament to see who was the fastest and cold beat the others. While we we waited to play our next opponent, we engaged in complex games of dominos. Our card tournament went way into the night and those of us who were really into it set up lanterns to keep playing long after the sun went down. Of course, we ended our last day at the campfire playing our favourite game of werewolf. We played long into the night, roasting marshmallows in-between games until it was 1 AM. We will surely miss camping at Pocaterra!
Day 7: Heading Home
We woke up bright and early to begin packing to head back to SAIT. We took down our tents, gathered our sleeping bags, and packed up the truck with all of our leftover food and sports equipment before having cereal, fruit, banana bread and bananas for breakfast. We cleaned up the campsite and headed off back to Calgary. On our way home, we saw three grizzly bears! A Mama bear and her two cubs. We had been waiting all week to see a bear and were happy to finally see one (especially from the safety of inside of the bus). Our camping trip was now complete! We were happy to get home and settled back into our rooms at SAIT and to get clean! We had gone a whole week without showering and were happy to feel fresh, do our laundry and have flushing toilets once more! We enjoyed a delicious lunch at Happy Hut, Shawarma for dinner, and got together to practice for our talent show that is coming up!