Sunday, October 2, 2011

The Rockies! Day 3

The Rockies! Day 3
So I'm back to tell you about the third day of my trip to the Rockies.
As always, I was quite reluctant to get out of the warm, heated car to prepare to go to our next stop: Edith Cavell Mountain. Just to give you an idea of how cold it was: when you changed into your clothes in the morning after you got out of bed, your clothes felt like blocks of ice against your skin. Bascially everything in the car was almost frozen except for my family, our clothes, and our sleeping bags. I really didn't want to get out of bed, partly because it was so cold and partly because it was so early. But of course, there was no choice but to get up and move, so eventually I dragged my toasty warm body out into the cold (cold? More like FREEZING) morning air and prepared everything to go to the mountain. Edith Cavell was pretty close to our campground Wabasso, so it was convenient to go there. Edith Cavell was actually really beautiful. It had these lines on the sides of the mountains, like layers. When you got up there, it was pretty cold, but not exactly unbearable when we started walking up to the summit. It didn't take a long time, just a few minutes. And when we got up there, something really unexpected popped up in front of us. It was a lake that was frozen over. It was pretty thin ice though, so if you put any pressure whatsoever onto it, it would break into pieces. My dad and I had a lot of fun spending our time there, breaking off shards of ice and throwing them onto the ice,
watching them shatter on the surface. Although our hands got really red and freezing cold, it was still really fun to do. After we played there for a while, I caught sight of people walking up to a cave and decided that I wanted to go check out this cave. So we hiked up through the rocky path - it was literally rocky. Rocks everywhere. - to the cave. The cave was also frozen, and it had blocks of ice on the walls and ceiling of the cave that were dripping water onto the ground. It was actually really really cool, and the cave went deep into the mountain, but it was obviously too dark and dangerous to go through, even though I would've liked to.
So after taking a satisfying amount of pictures, we left for the Colombia Icefields, which is basically self explanatory. It's like a field of ice, and so we stopped there and ate lunch in the car, then hiked up to where the icefields were. You can actually pay to go with a group in a special car and drive around the icefields, but we didn't do that. We just hiked up. The hike up was pretty steep, and you wouldn't believe how windy it was. It was extremely windy, and the temperature was probably below zero. And as far as I know, windy and cold don't really make a great combination. But I have to admit, it was pretty breathtaking once you got to the top, and the windiness actually got pretty enjoyable, seeing your hair whip around your face in all directions. After being whipped around by the wind a bit, we hiked back down, taking baby steps so that we didn't fall and tumble all the way down. Then we drived and drived and drived until we reached the Lake Louise Campground. We had to wait in a really long line to get in, and I have to say, if I could describe it in one word, it would be... HORRIBLE. The campground was horrible. The showers sprayed all over the place and were cold, the bathrooms were small and dirty, you had share one big campground space, a train passed, tooting it's horn, making you wake up every few hours, and there were no lamposts or anything, so it was pitch black. The reason there were so many people there was because it was the only campsite in the area that had full hookups. I recommend that you keep driving until you find some other place, because Lake Louise Campground has so many things to complain about. I had a restless sleep that night, waking up every few hours because of that loud train...

That's it for today, folks, I'll see you next time!!

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