Camping with Henry and Rhys for our third annual backpacking trip.
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First, here's some photos of Walter and Henry and I having fun at the mini golf course. He doesn't really
'play' so much as run around and smack his ball around, but it's still an outing.
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One of Henry's fun times is simply pulling his ball out of the ponds. Not sure again why that's a fun
time, but he'll toss his ball in there and play with the ball retriever over and over.
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The golf ball vacuum is also a draw. We should honestly charge the golf course as the driving range
is totally clean by the time we leave.
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Henry in the tub with his 'lips' made from the inflatable ring from the unicorn floaty.
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Walter and I on the big swings at Calaway. I think this was Walter's first ride on the big swings.
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And on the carousel. The secret to Calaway is to go with slightly bad weather and/or at the end
of the day. Our boys are usually only good for ~2-3 hours anyway, and then you miss most of the screaming.
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This is one of the boys' favourite activities on a sunny day - making potions with their 'science kit'.
Natalia found the graduated cylinders, beakers, and pipettes on Amazon and the kids love them.
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Henry with our friend Jason's fountain. For posterity, Jason had to bring the installers back to
lift this giant rock in order to get the rocks out of it that his boys loaded into it.
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Chilling on Auburn Bay Lake in the fire smoke.
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How many kids can go in the hot tub at once?
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We went for a bike ride at West Bragg Creek with Rhys and Grayson. While the whining about the mosquitoes was
epic, the boys did fine riding Mountain Road.
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This was the highlight, throwing rocks in the creek. This is just before Walter ate it face-first on
the gravel and filled his face with gravel and dirt.
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While the weather was absolutely not inviting, we decided to take advantage of having blocked the sites out
3 months ago. Here are Henry and Rhys, at ~3 degrees in the rain.
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With a garbage bag keeping his blue baby dry.
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Alf with the boys managing the whining on the uphill. Henry announced that all mountain trails should have
escalators to go up and water slides to go down. Here here.
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It had snowed overnight and Henry was happy to find snow still on the trail.
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A sense of the area with ~30mm of rain mixed with snow the day before.
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Henry and Rhys made it to Elbow Lake. We actually thought there might be ice on the lake based on how
frigid and wet it was, but of course there wasn't.
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Of course, while Alf and I set up tents, the boys played and made snowballs, but also jumped in the
lake. That's EXACTLY what you want to deal with at 6pm in the rain/snow is frozen kids with wet
feet and boots and socks.
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While we didn't see much in the way of the area on this evening, it was at least calm and dry for
supper, which is nice.
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I gave Henry my booties since his rain boots were soaked, and with that, along with boiled water in
Nalgenes, they warmed up enough to avoid hypothermia and eat supper. Note the Smarties on the plates
along with a flask for Daddies.
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Ensuring your kids are warm in their sleeping bags is key for mountain backpacking.
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Amazingly, the next morning dawned with bright blue skies and warmer air than I had feared. Once
plugging some hot oatmeal into the boys, it was time for fishing!
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Looking down valley to Tombstone and Cougar Mountains.
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Wandering the campsite in booties again.
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This grandpa joined us for morning fishing and said he had never caught anything here in many trips.
He hooked into a little brook trout though and asked Henry if he wanted to help him bring it in.
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The boys on the way out from Elbow Lake.
Highwood Pass and Ptarmigan Cirque
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Since the day turned out beautiful and it was only lunch time, we decided to have lunch at Highwood Pass.
The boys found a small slope and slid on it for awhile.
Henry and Rhys sliding around at Highwood Pass
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The boys also took an empty Tic Tac box and played boats with it. Henry made a dam with rocks and
blocked the container from going down the creek.
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While asking boys to 'hike' and letting them run around are two different things, by promising them
"whatever they wanted at Ice Cream Junction", we convinced them to join us to go up to Ptarmigan Cirque.
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Again, much whining at the start, but once we got up into the alpine, the boys found lots of things
to look around and enjoy.
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This area is one of the easiest places to get up above treeline without too much work.
The boys decided they wanted to see the tarn above the dam.
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The fact that this sign has a period at the end of it doesn't seem right.
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The boys kept motoring here, even without us pushing them.
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There were a couple of grizzlies maybe a few hundred metres down the trail from us. Thankfully
people make enough noise that they stayed down there.
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The other one (or the same one) along the grass line.
Misc photos
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Henry having a snow cone at the Food Fest.
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Walter having a snow cone AND a sour soother.
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Henry at the cat cafe in Calgary, a neat way of pulling money out of people who don't want pets, but
do want their kids not to be emotionally stunted.
