84. Go Camping

When I say camping I don't mean going off in a motorhome to an RV park where there is power, electricity and flushable toilets.  To me true camping means going out west with a tent to a place where there's no cellphone service, no showers and no bathrooms.  With my own family every summer I go down to a lake in Montana to go wake boarding, but that's nothing like the camping trip I went on in my Wildlife class.  The photo bellow shows the girls tent, which we set up with some help from my teacher.

My class of nineteen students and three teacher chaperones headed out to the Bighorn Camp Ground in Yaha Tinda, Alberta.  It was late spring, and we spent the weekend out west.  It was a fun time consisting campfires and hiking.  There were a few firsts on are trip opposed to other years; two young grizzly bears came right into the camp ground.  My teacher had to use the bear banger gun to scare them off.  Another first was one of the students cut himself and had to be taken to the hospital, we were all whittling scrap pieces of wood and his knife slipped and he cut his wrist.  Late that night he returned from the hospital and stayed for the rest of the trip.  It rained for a large portion of the first night and the second day.  In the girls tent we set up the plastic floor tarp incorrectly, so we woke up swimming in water.  Our tent was cold and wet, while the three guys tents were warm and dry.  Below is a photo of the Bighorn Falls which is a beautiful set of falls a five five minute hike from the campground.  My class hiked up past the falls and continued out to the mountains, we saw many bear tracks along the way.  

The last day was hiked out to a small isolated lake where some of us went swimming.  It was spring and the water was extremely cold.   I had a fun, eventful weekend that I wouldn't normally get to experience.