The Backcountry Adventure

Well the weekend began at the basecamp which was located at Little Elbow Campground. We got all packed up and prepared for the hike up to Mount Romulus Campground about 15km up the trail.

We sent the kids up before us in groups of three or four and headed up behind them. I was definitely the slowest so this was my view for most of the trail :)

We made really good time and reached the campground just after noon. We lazed around for a few minutes but then got busy setting up the tents... then all three of us adults CRASHED for a few hours while the kids all made lunch... we finally got up just before five and made our lunch.

The rest of Saturday was pretty relaxing. The kids pretty much hung out and played cards, when it began to get dark this deer came right up beside our warrant officer's campsite and posed for a few pictures until. Flight Officer Davies decided he was going to try to sneak up to it and "ride the deer"... the deer ran off pretty quickly :)

On Saturday morning we planned to hike up the trail to the tombstone campsite but this proved to be impossible since the pass was snowed in. The snow was about knee deep and would require snow shoes and a bunch of other equiptment we just didn't have. We decided to stick it out at the Mount Romulus Campsite and began a few activities to keep the kids busy.

Flight Officer Davies ran an activity with the kids. They were all different parts of a plane and ran thru a fun little scenario.

A couple were gunners, a few were engines, and of course we had a pilot and navigator aboard our plane.

It was hilarious to watch the kids acting out the parts and playing out the simulation.

Unfortunatly for this poor little engine... he was hit during the flight and the pilot was forced to pull the fire extinguisher :)

After the fun the kids were sent out on a navigation assignment. We sent the kids ahead and about twenty minutes later us adults started to hike down the route to see how everything was going. I decided I didn't really want to hike back up the hill so after 2-3km I yelled to the boys that I was heading back to camp and headed back up the trail.

When I got back to the campsite I decided to attempt making a fire. I almost chopped off my foot once but was able to chop a bit of kindling and was pretty happy when I was successful at getting a good roaring fire started!

After I was done that I went for a bit of a walk and took some scenery pictures around the campsite.

The kids were also sent out on "reconnaissance" missions to scout out the area and see if there was an alternate route to take back on Monday. They were sent out in small groups once again adn were told to take notes while they walked the route.

We then had them come back and create a model of the area they scouted out using rocks, branches, and pretty much anything else they wanted for landmarks.

They were all very creative and were able to give the Major all the information he needed to make a plan for Sunday. There was one area of the alternate route that was flooded out but the kids figured that we would be able to make a stone bridge if all 15 of us worked at it in about 15 minutes so the plan was to do just that and to take the river route back to basecamp in the morning.

Plans kind of changed when we woke up to THIS!

It had snowed all night and we had quite a bit on the ground... worst still there was still a ton of snow falling. We needed to pack up and get out of there as fast as we could since the snow was already piled up to at least our ankles and the longer we waited to get on the trail the heavier and thicker the snow would be.

The scenery on the way back looked more like THIS :(

There was more downhill than uphill on the way back but the snow made it a pretty rough trail. I could feel my pack get heavier and heavier as we went along since heavy wet snow piled up on the pack and on me. When we stopped to re-gather and break I would shake my pack off and could feel the weight lift off the pack.

As you can see we all looked a little bit tired for the hike home.

We kept up a 4-5km pace back to basecamp and got back at about 11:30am. It was great to be done the hike and to be back at basecamp.

The next hour and a half was probably my toughest part of the trip because I had stupidly worn almost all of my clothes back. My outer rain/wind jacket and my fleece hoodie were soaked from the snow, and my undershirt and t-shirt were soaked from sweating during the hike. With the snow still falling, and the wind blowing it was COLD!

The Major made us all change out of our wet clothes into whatever dry stuff we had but I did not have much dry clothes left at all. The last hour and a bit were spent in a very thin t-shirt and a long sleeve shirt - I don't think I have ever been so cold in my entire life. Everyone was very very happy when the bus showed up to get us a little bit earlier than expected!

It was really nice to get home ")