Camping weekend

These are some belated pictures from JUNE! That was when we had our girls camping weekend. Since I've been so busy, they've been on the backburner for getting published. So, here we go:

This is Joelle's tent. Bonnie, Joelle and I slept in it.Here are the girls around the campfire.Deanna's making Jiffy Pop (which, by the way, takes much more than a jiffy)Good job Deanna!On Saturday, we headed west and then north, onto the Icefields Parkway to do a day-hike of 7kms up to Helen Lake. Here I am with Mel, at the trail head:There was a light dusting of snow on the trees and ground at the start of the trail, indicating what might wait for us above as we continued onward.The ten of us made a pretty noisy and slow moving group. With 10 people and nearly 10 cameras, we stopped a lot of time to take pictures. We had views like this to enjoy:Bonnie and Joelle enjoyed the views too!We continued hiking up the trail, taking a brief break at an old rock slide area.Soon, we reached the top of the first leg of the journey, and swung around onto the backside of the mountain, where lay a lot more snow than the front side.Looking back from where we came:And this is looking towards the mountains on the far side of the valley towards which we headed:Soon, the snow grew deeper around us, but we kept going, because it wasn't too bad yet and there were footprints mapped out for us to follow already. Most of the girls had good hiking gear or gators on, so their pants didn't get wet, however there were a few that were just wearing jeans and struggled on without complaining too much.

A few people had their legs fall through the snow and into hidden puddles, completely soaking their boot. Eventually as we trekked on, we found a good place to stop for lunch.Although it looks really scary and steep from this camera angle, the rocky area was pretty comfortable, although a wee bit exposed to the wind. We sat there to relax and figure out our next course of action, because the last leg of the journey was a steep climb up switchbacks to Helen Lake. We figured the snow might be worse at that part, but we couldn't really know - at least not until we saw two hikers coming down the mountain along the trail we intended to go up. Bonnie called to them and asked them if they made it to Helen Lake, and they replied that the snow got much worse and they didn't make it to the lake.

Thus did we decide not to continue further (to the relief of several of the girls, who didn't want to be the ones to suggest quitting first) and headed back down the trail.

To fill the rest of the day, we decided to go check out a bunch of the touristy lakes kicking around. First, we went to Peyto Lake:Then we went to Bow Lake:A little birdy in the tree near Bow Lake:And lastly, to Moraine Lake:It was pretty cold out by this point, so we were all bundled up.That concluded our Saturday adventures, aside from returning to camp and making some food while enjoying some wine. On Sunday, we ventured up to Johnstone Canyon and beyond, so stay tuned for more belated pictures.