WARNING: This blog is long and contains many pictures of cute animals and sexy humans.
Last week, my boyfriend, Dennis, and I went on a long trip through the Rockies (aka the wilderness), on the border of Alberta and British Columbia, Canada.
Now a piece of advice for people who may want to do a similar trip, or just a long camping. These trips are not for the faint of heart. You must get used to no showers, freezing nights (depending where you are), and the fear of meeting a grizzly bear (or cougar in some areas) while you are enjoying yourself on a treacherous hike. Speaking of hikes, if you do happen to go on one be prepared! We saw people wearing flip flops... like seriously??? This isn't Ontario 10 minute hikes on a boardwalk for you, these are mountain hikes that are minimally maintained. You'd think some people would have the sense to at least bring the appropriate shoes.... and water. (Tangent: funny story, when Dennis and I were hiking through a fairly hard hike through the Icefields - near Banff last year, we were stopped by 2 guys who were clearly beginner hikers - way too much gear - some of which still had tags on, clearly not enjoying the hike anymore while they were only half way, etc). They asked us where they could get water. Poor guys. I don't think they will be going hiking very soon after that.)
Anyways...
The trip to the mountains usually goes like this:
You drive through a flat, very boring highway for a couple of hours. Then BAM, you see mountains in the distance and you are taken aback by the beauty. So you pull out your camera and start taking pictures of the far off mountains. Then as you get closer, you are surrounded by these mountains, at which point you are wondering why you were taking silly pictures of far off mountains when the close up pictures are so much better. You also feel the need to stop at every single view point along the road. Only to realize after that the hikes offer even better views of the mountains!
As it so happens our first night wasn't necessarily the most successful. We came on a Saturday and we arrived in the late afternoon... which means no camping spots. We were sent to "overflow camping". Turns out "overflow camping" should be called "a piece of flat land with hardly any trees for cover where you simply pluck your tent alongside other people and sleep for the night, actually this area is mostly made for trailers but you've got nowhere else to sleep so have fun". Thank goodness I packed some salads and sandwich materials for food so we didn't need a fire to cook any food. We visited the city of Jasper that day for hike maps, info, and of course ice cream. We also happened to visit this little area which was beautiful! Additionally, we met a group of elk. As a biologists I was so interested in the make-up of the group - one male and the rest females. This is fairly regular among many animals, as some will only have one alpha (sometimes a beta, and other low ranking males).
The next day we quickly made it our mission to find a normal camp site. After we got settled in we went on a couple of short hikes and stopped at some view points, the usual.
We stopped at a view point and I wanted a flattering photo of me sitting on the barrier. The barrier was slanted to prevent people from sitting on it. So instead I got this beauty.
We parked here when we went on a trail. These goats wandered the parking lot licking salt of the cars and stealing food from people. At one point I freaked out on this one cause I thought he was going to attack me. Clearly I am the goat whisperer.
One of our first hikes was up this mountain. As always beautiful views.
Once we climb to the end of a hike (usually the top of the mountain) we have lunch. There were so many chipmunks that would come up and beg for our trail mix. Being the cute and fluffy animal lovers that we are we of course fed them. I feel like this guy has the best photo out of all of ours. Anybody know his email? I feel like this was destined to be his profile picture on Facebook.
Our second hike was through an old mine. Unfortunately someone (or many people) have been stealing the information brochures so we simply wandered through ruins that we could not decipher what they could have been used for!
Later that day we visited some hot springs (our first shower in three days and second of the entire trip). I was expecting to be up somewhere in the mountains, sitting amongst rocks, and bathing in... well hot springs. I was severely disappointed to find 2 large hot tubs and 2 cold pools. The entire place smelled of chlorine. They should advertise their place as "unnatural/ manmade hotsprings. I.e. A large hot tub". Whatever I got a shower out of it.
The next day was pretty insane (yet expensive).
When waking up our first thing we do is get all our food from the car. Today was different, when opening the car we saw evidence of a trail mix stealing culprit, who also likes to leave tiny poop evidence. Impossiblé! I assured Dennis that it was probably a chipmunk that had crawled into the car while it was open, took some trail mix, and left (little thing was very picky with what he ate, he didn't eat his fruits, the nuts were his favourite). The crime scene was cleaned up, and the detectives went on with their day feeling pretty satisfied with themselves for solving such a mystery.... little did they know! (story continues the next day)
We also went on a tram in Jasper. It was ridiculously expensive for a 7 minute ride up a mountain ($30 each), but it was worth it. The view was incredible!
Then there was a "short, moderate" hike to go higher up the moutain. The reason those words are in quotes was because it was LIES. The hike would be short if you ran up the 90 degrees of rocky hill you had to climb. I'd like to think that I went rock climbing, because that was pretty much what it was.
We were so high up we found snow! Thanks to the awesome family who took photos for us!
After fearfully climbing down that mountain (climbing up a steep mountain is usually easier than climbing down), we went back to Jasper the city. We kind of cheated in the whole "living in nature and only eating the camp food we bring". THE PIZZA JUST SMELLED SO GOOD. Yeah so we had a delicious pizza, so what. When in Jasper climb, swim, snowball fight, and eat.
That night was pretty entertaining as well. As per usual I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. I of course had to wake up my bodyguard (aka Dennis) in case bears decide that I am their new playtoy, also I am a chicken when it comes to the dark, in a dark forest, with creepy sounds and all. Dennis decided that we need the second flashlight that was int he car.
To the detectives astonished surprise when he opened the car door, he saw the culprit, a tiny mouse, first hand! Contrary to the detectives idea, the culprit was still in the car! He was leading a pretty happy life with constant nutrition and all the space in the world.
When Dennis opened the car and shown the flashlight the mouse wasn't very happy and started to squeak in annoyance at Dennis. It was pretty hilarious in my opinion. Dennis wasn't so amused, he was more worried about the fact that THERE IS A MOUSE IN THE CAR. The little bugger wasn't necessarily eager to leave either, who would, with so much food! So I, the master mind, figured we would trap the guy with some of his favourite snacks... nuts from the trail mix. We sprinkled some on the car floor close to the open door. The culprit was not as smart as he might of thought, he was just so overtaken by his greed that he lunged for the nuts right away. At which point Dennis took a bowl and scraped him out of the car. It was an amusing night time adventure to say the least. Throughout our trip we kept on finding evidence of the culprit: tooth marks in food and poop.
Taking pictures in front of waterfalls is difficult. Especially when the water is freezing.
A man's usual picture in front of (or in this case, on) his car *cough* love of his life *cough*
Finally we saw bears. But I was never able to take a great picture of them. Still how cute is it that the cub follows its mama like this. Cuteness overload.
Around the middle of our trip we wanted to drive to Yoho National Park camp there for a couple of days and then make our way over to our last destination, Glacier National Park. However, when we got to Yoho (around 2pm) all the campsites were full! Like what?? After two hours of driving we were devastated, as we were exhausted and we really wanted to see this park. So we had to make the decision: either camp somewhere sketchy and risk getting in trouble with the park or just drive on into Glacier National Park and get there 2 days earlier than we planned. We did the latter. It wasn't so bad. The park is really close to Revelstoke, so we spent the rest of the day exploring the city (we may or may not have ad sushi or Mcdonalds...)
We happened to go to some "Enchanted Forest" which was awesome! It was a trail through a forest that had monuments to different childhood stories like Snow White, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Hanzel and Gretel, etc.
Dennis spent a minute in the first little pig house made of straw, but the wolf huffed and puffed and blew the house down.
Then Dennis ran to the second little pigs house made of sticks. But the evil wolf huffed and puffed and blew this one down as well.
As his last resort, Dennis went into the third little pigs house, the house made of brick. The wolf huffed and puffed, and he huffed and puffed some more. Lucky enough for Dennis the wolf was unable to bring down this house and gave up. No ones knows what happened to the wolf.
This made me laugh.
There were also boat rides. The "use at your own risk" boat rides.
Later that day we also visited some ghost town. It was like a huge museum. It contained so many items from the past. Not just little stuff but whole houses, cars, motorcycles, and trains (which were museums on the inside!). It was pretty cool. We also went on a "ghost train". Which was a simple train but did as a haunted train on the inside. Considering I am a person who cannot handle scary things very easily, I ran out screaming.. no surprise there.
Dennis leaving the saloon after a cold beer and a fight.. the usual.
It was a good end to the day.
We took it slow for the next couple of days. Just small hikes. No Bear Grylls hikes.
We also figured it would be nice to actual explore our campsite hike. Which used to be around an old railway. I love seeing old pieces of history.
This used to be where a railway went. Pretty cool, but would that really be stable?
The trail said it was closed due to an avalanche that passed through and blocked the path. Considering we are daredevils we still went on it. This was the avalanche damage. How crazy is this?? It of course looks more intimidating in real life. We were still able to climb over it. What is even more bizarre is that the ice was still under all those branches from the avalanche.
Our next hike, that very same day, had a glorious view! It was a fairly short climb up (steep, but short), and it came out into this huge meadow/valley area:
The trail led us through this valley into the very far off mountain you see at the middle there. The trail itself wasn't very hard but because it was in the sun the entire time (in 30 degree weather) it was very tiering.
But I found a nice resting tree. I am embarrassed to admit I ripped [my best hiking pants] on the backside (aka my bum) while climbing on that tree.
The top!
So halfway through our hike we met this guy. He was hiking with his family, but his parents left him about 1/5 of the way along the hike. He then asked to join us because we were heading towards bear territory and you never want to be hiking alone through bear territory. He was a cool character, we actually really enjoyed his company. He also really loved taking pictures (and a lot of selfies with us).
As always we had lunch at the top.
And we saw more snow.
We also kept on seeing a lot of this animal on our way back. But we still cannot decipher what this creature is! Is it a groundhog, a pika, some other mountainous animal??
After this hike we went back to Revelstoke to swim in their community center pool, and once again take advantage of the showers. It feels so good to be clean!
For our last couple of days our friends from Calgary happened to join us. Dennis being the good friend and boyfriend that he is saved the last, treacherous, calf killing hike for last. However, the view really was one of my favourites from the entire trip. But the climb... I think my legs are still killing me. We took many breaks throughout the climb (1074m elevation, 13km both ways).
About half way up the hike (yes this is only halfway) we found this shack, with accompanying porta-potta conveniently placed right on the edge of a cliff. We aren't sure what it may be used for. It was locked so we could not explore further. The toilet on the other hand was very much open, anyone was welcome to take a poop on the edge of the world.
And so this was our trip. One of the best of my life, yet I know it won't be the only one.
Just remember in your life, never stop discovering, you won't regret it.
