Camping in the Rockies - Part I.

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Hey everyone!

I found a little internet cafe in Jasper so I'm sending you a few lines but no photos I'm afraid, I forgot my camera lead. But rest assured, I will post a proper blog with photos as soon as possible (probably when I get to Vancouver next week).

Well... where do I start?! We spent our first night in Canada camping at Pinantan Lake, we toasted marshmallows and introduced ourselves. There are seven girls and three boys on the trip and the majority of us are British. There is one Kiwi, one Aussy and one German just to mix it up a bit. Our tour guide, Becca, is from Iowa and has been working for Trek America for 4 seasons. She -loves- Canada and requested to run this tour (the 'Mountie' tour) this year because she loves looking for bears in the Canandian wilderness. Pinantan Lake was lovely and camping was uneventful.

On our second night we headed up to the Beaverfoot campsite via Golden, which is a super cute, tiny little village with an amazing second-hand bookshop. This is where seven of us went whitewater rafting! It was so exciting... class 4+ rapids apparently (which means if it was much stronger we couldn't have done it as class 5 and above rapids are too dangerous to raft on). There are photos of the rafting which I'll post as soon as I can. When we arrived at our campsite we discovered that there had been a music festival there over the weekend, and there were still festival goers hanging around. Unfortunately the toilets had been destroyed as a result and we were up most of the night listening to pounding dance music (I wasn't, I slept through the whole thing... but it pissed off some of the other campers). The next day the owner of the campsite apologised profusely and offered to put us up in the log cabins onsite... which was great! We had a proper kitchen to cook dinner in and warm beds for the night. Yay!

After two days in Beaverfoot we headed off towards Banff... in the snow?! Apparently this is the worst June weather anyone on the West coast has seen for 15 years! A lot of the rivers have burst their banks and campsites have had to close. We has no choice but to spend our 3 nights in Banff at a hostel, which meant coughing up an extra $85 bucks, but to be honest I was just pleased to have avoided camping in the ice. In Banff we visited the hot springs and generally just mooched about the town.. the views of the mountains there are incredible! I wonder if the locals ever get bored of looking at those mountains every day? I bet they stop noticing after a while. From Banff we drove up to Lake Louise, and as luck would have it, we had our first (and only) day of sunshine so far! It was such an amazing view. A few of us went canoeing on the lake which was really good.

Ok, I'm running out of time... ummm... what else should I tell you?! I spend most of my time with Kate (from Stoke) and Eva (from Kologne)... we are the only girls who are travelling alone so it's a good job we get on so well! Tomorrow we're leaving early and making our way up to Wells Grey National Park... which is kind of scary as there are no amenities there at all, plus to get to our campsite we have to canoe 6km to a little island AND the weather will be horrendous! I must admit I was not prepared for the weather to be so bad... I have had to buy hiking boots and sweat pants -shudder-... yes, I am wearing sweat pants. They are so ugly but I really don't care... it's so cold and damp everywhere I just want layers!

However, yes it's wet and cold... but trust me, I am loving every minute of this trip! I love this part of the world, the scenery is so beautiful and the people are super friendly. I have 3 weeks of sunshine to look forward too once this is over, for now I'm enjoying experiencing Canada... including the snow!

Missing everyone!
Much love!
xx

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