Friday, (Canada Day!)

Burr…. I found it cold last night (it was 4’ throughout the night), is it not summer?? We are in the mountains, I guess this explains the weather!!! Same routine in the morning wake the Scouts early, make and eat breakfast, back a snack in day packs (Thanks for the Donation Andrew & Jen for the Cliff Energy Bars).

Ice fields & museum was our first planned activities for this day, so we all loaded up in the vehicles and drove to site.  I must say that at this site we saw snowflakes and I was wondering why I hadn’t packed a warmer jacket, mitts and toque.  I guess when I read optional on the packing list I thought its SUMMER why would I need those?????? (Silly me…… I will pack differently the next time I head in that direction).   

We all hike up to as far as we could to see the ice fields.  The Scouts thought is was cool to see the signs that stated where the ice field was in earlier years driving up & hiking up to where is was today. What was also interesting was the flow of water just below of the ice field, this was the melt off heading down stream.  Some pictures were taken and off to the museum we went.  Wasn’t a very big museum but some good information was there in the history of the park. 

With a 2:30ish tram ride pre-booked we need to get back to our campsite to have a quick lunch and pack an afternoon snack and drink for the afternoon activities.

This afternoon was a start of at least one exhausted Leader (ME!). When one says, “oh let’s take the tram ride up most of the mountain and then says we are going to hike up the rest of the way to the top of Whistler Mountain”……..I’m thinking to myself how hard can this be??? About a quarter of the way up I’m now thinking……”HOW OUT OF SHAPE I AM!!!” As most of the Scouts are trotting up the mountain not phased in the least and with others struggling a bit to get to the top!  Just when one thought they were at the top, you would get over the peak and find another steep section that needed to be climbed.  I had many encouraging words from strangers….. It’s not that much father……you can do it….. It’s just one more peak to go……you can do it!!!! All Scouts did an awesome job accomplishing their own individual mountain peaks for that day.  Once up one must hike back down!!!!

To think we did more after this jammed pack day…….back to camp for dinner and a bit of a rest, then back into town for Canada Day fireworks.  Fireworks show was a good one for a small town that lasted a good 20 to 30 minutes.  Needless to say that this was a late evening with everyone finally getting to bed at midnight, all going to bed knowing that we had a early rise the next day for our rafting adventure early morning.  All Scouts feel asleep quickly this evening. 

Thursday,

Not sure many of us slept well through this first night, with the thunder, lightening, and rain throughout the night.

Waking up early (6am) for some leaders and shortly after for most Scouts……we had told them they could sleep in till 7am, but with movement inside the campsite most woke up early as well.  It had stopped raining but everything was soaking wet.  It had rained real hard and our campsite was in a low spot.  Most tents had water puddles sitting underneath their tents, including mine in the morning. 

Tear down went smoothly but all tent had to be packed up wet…..lets just hope it’s not raining at our next destination and we can dry out everything a bit before we have to sleep in them for this night. Once fed and all packed up we were on the road again.

We had made a slight adjustment to the agenda; we had decided that we would go to the hot springs today on our way up instead of on the second last day on our way down. This day had no planned activities, except for traveling and setting up camp so we Leader thought the adjustment made sense.  On the road going up to the hot springs we saw the first of many wildlife sightings, six mountain goats on the road up and 4 to 5 in the parking lot & the grounds around the hot springs.  Wow, they were close!!!!

All the kids love going into the cold pool (can’t remember how cold it was, my Scout dared me to go into it and I can tell you it was REALLY COLD) then they would hurry to get back into the hot pool……was amusing watching them do this, they needed to burn off some energy after being in the vehicles for two days.

Once all out of the pool, we were on our way down to our next destination home base camp for 3 nights 2 days.  We did see more wildlife on our way down from the hot springs first of many bears that we saw, this one was a black bear eating his supper on the side of the road, not a care in the work that we had stop and took picture from the inside of our vehicles. 

Camp took a bit longer to set up today due to everything being wet and the many rocks under the ground that pegs had to work around and be repositioned.  We wanted to make sure that tents were dry before everyone put there stuff into them. We also had a few other things to set up due to not moving out of this site for a few days.  Bathing suit need to be dried so cloths lines so they were put up, a kitchen area was set up with a roof, picnic table need to be moved around, fire wood needed to be collected and chopped.  Once that was complete we started making dinner.  This even we managed to sit around the fire pit for a bit and realised it was late and we had a very busy day ahead of us so we all went to bed. 

Wednesday,

Excitement of the day finally has arrived……..the hustle to get ready, pack up, load up and tearing kids away for their parents for a Scouting adventure it's been a full year of planning to get to this point.  Once all three vehicles we loaded up we were on our way.

First destination here we come…....with a small pit stop to fuel the vehicles and to feed everyone.  Pizza Hut buffet dinner was a hit. Pizza, pasta, garlic sticks, greens (were on some of the plates), drinks and desert.  All boys proved that they were boys and all ate their fair share.

We were back into the car for our last leg of our day, a 50 min drive from where we were.  

First campsite set up proved to us leaders that these Scouts have gotten the hang of setting up their tents and working as a team.  Today we needed to be quick due to the few rain drop that were falling and the dark clouds that we could see that were coming towards us. Within 30 minutes all tents were set up and ready for the first nights stay.  With a quick play at the play structure and a bathroom break…..fire pit was the plan for the rest of the evening.  Guess that wasn’t the plan of Mother Nature!!!!! Thunder, lightning, and RAIN!!!!  So our first evening was spent in our assigned tents with only once being able to come out once for a quick snack of homemade cookies (Thanks for the donation, Shelly & Trevor….they were really good!!) Once the snack was done or almost done we had to run for cover to our tent again and that's where we all had to stay for the rest of the evening/night.

This was not what we planned for let's hope this is the last of the rain for the rest of the trip. Some of us Leaders were hearing that back home was getting a whopper of a storn as well.

It's been busy!

Sorry first of all, we had trouble getting online yesterday.

Yesterday started with waking up early eating breakie, loading up in vehicles and let me just say.........let the race begin!!!!!!!
First destination was icefields, then back for a quick lunch so we can make our scheduled tram ride. Once on top most hiked up to the top of Whistlers mountain, then the hike down, back for dinner, then into town to see the fireworks to finally get to bed at midnight.

Today....was very much the same breakfast, out for rafting (we all survived, yah!), back for lunch, afternoon hike that was to be 11km hike but we had a few tired scout so we turned around 7km, back to campsite for dinner, then into town to let the kids spends some money. We are now making some anodes and shortly going to send tired leaders to bed and scouts.

Tomorrow will be another busy one. Kids are having fun but don't be surprised when your children lay on the couch for a few days after this trip. I know thAt's what I would like to do!
Good night Scouter Heather

Arrival complete!!!!

Let me first say that last night's fire pit.....never happened. Right after I finished blogging it started rain and we all ran for cover in our tents. Think we were getting a less intense rain storm than what we have all heard that you all had back at home. All is good but was quite wet when we tore down this morning. We were all up early and were on our way this morning earlier than leaders expected.
With the early start we decided that we would stop and let us all soak at the hot springs. Nice treat after a long day of driving. Along the road into the hot springs we were welcomed by six mountain goats and on our way out we were glanced good bye by a small black bear eating his dinner.
Camp is set up and we are settled into our site.

Oh! Happy Birthday Jamie!

Scouter Heather

We have arrive at our first destination!

We have made it safe, sound and are all set up for the night. Kids had buffet pizza dinner at pizza hut. As usual teen age boys Ate more than there fair share, all going up at least three times.
We are setting up to have a fire pit.
Good night, Scout Heather

ONE MORE SLEEP!!!

This weeks been a busy one for us Leader......Still lots to do before the fun begins.

Scouter Jeremy is making sure we have, propane....... so we can cook, ice..... so our food stays fresh, checking First Aid Kit.....making sure we have a complete kit (although we ARE NOT going to have to use it!!! I hope!!), Filling water containers......so we can stay hydrated, making sure we have tents, traps, cooking supplies & utensils.....must have these, oh don't forget to pack your own stuff too!

Scouter Kevin has been confirming with the campsites and our planned activities .......that they are still expecting our group, he also has arranged for our group to be picked up at park gates for our White Water Rafting Day, you must not forget to pack your stuff as well.

Scouter Heather has pick up a pile of food.....so we don't starve!!! Prepare & cooked two beef roast for a lunch this week, peeled a ton of carrots (snacks), grated some mozza cheese for pizza bush pie dinner, complete & organized all paperwork, fielded a few calls from parents who have had questions......made a few to do list so I don't forget anything, oh and started this blog (so you can be informed, I just hope it will work while we are on our trip and that I will have a moment each day to write a bit down for parents to see) . I've also packed and I'm am now ready to go!!

I hope all Scouts are getting just as excited as I am for this trip.

Scouter Heather