July 27

It’s about 5:00 p.m. on Sunday as I write this. We’ve had an event filled weekend to be sure. Jamie and his friends arrived on Friday afternoon and set up to camp for the weekend. I had saved them three sites and they were really happy with them. It was so good to see him…it’s been a long time. Cody and Jamie G, his friends for the past 25 years came with him as did a number of people who play in his band or are simply good friends. They seemed to have a good time even though Friday was a rainy, stormy day. Saturday was better and today is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. He and his buddies hiked up to the waterfall and the glacier near the campground…they had a good time just being out in the wilderness and away from the city, I think. Jamie’s tent had a broken zipper and it was so cold at night that he ended up sleeping in his car. I’m going to get him new camping gear for an early birthday present and maybe he’ll get some more use out of it this summer. He got pretty cold without a proper sleeping bag this trip. The nights around here easily get into the high 30’s/low 40’s F. Friday morning we actually had fresh snow on the mountain across from us. Summer in the Rockies, eh!

On Saturday, my niece, Kristine, her husband, Joel, and son, Caleb, arrived and set up camp next to us. It’s good to see them too and spend some time getting to know Joel and Caleb, and even Kristine again. I haven’t seen her in a long time and she’s grown into a lovely young working mom with a family to care for. I’m proud of all she’s accomplished. They are such a nice little family and Caleb will soon have a baby brother or sister to play with. They brought their dog, Dexter with them and he really enjoyed swimming after the ball out in the lake. He’s like an energizer bunny…keeps going and going tirelessly. He’s a nice dog though and is good pals with Caleb. Caleb reminds me of our grandson, Wyatt, a little bit...same colouring and such a sweet, gentle demeanor and wonderful innocent nature.

Last night I took Kristine with me on a run to sell firewood in the campsite. It was fun to be with her. We drove to the end of the campsite and some people came out to the truck. We thought they wanted wood, but really what they wanted was tell us about the campers across the road who had a chainsaw and were cutting down trees for firewood. I didn’t think twice about it and called the Conservation Officer to come and deal with them. Donna, whom I met for the first time last night, arrived and ended up giving them a fine for cutting the tree, which is likely well over $300. She also confiscated the guy’s chainsaw that he said cost over a thousand dollars and belonged to his friend. Oh well, that’s what you get when you when you act like a fool! How could anyone be so stupid. It was interesting to note that when Emmett, the other Conservation Officer arrived this morning to see how things were in the campground, that he took a drive through and gave the same site a ticket for not having their dog on a leash….that’s another couple hundred dollars fine. He didn’t know until he came back and told me what he’d done that it was the same site Donna had dealt with last night. Boy, those campers had an expensive weekend! I hope they learned something.

Tom and I got back to our campsite after our last wood-selling run at about 11:30 last night and Joel was standing out in the driveway watching something on the mountain across the dam. He pointed out two blinking lights, like flashlights or headlamps that hikers wear, that were moving slowly down the mountain. It was dark and they were coming through a treed area. Now stop a moment and put yourself in their shoes…it’s a dark, cold, moonless night; you are in a heavily forested area where grizzly bears and other animals like wolves and coyotes live and roam freely; there are all sorts of rocks, branches and holes to fall over or into; and you have basically lost the trail you were following. Would you be a bit scared? Yeah, I thought so! The hikers finally got down out of the trees and to the low spot in a deep V in the mountain. They didn’t go any further than that though and we could see them moving back and forth across the area. The problem was that they had come down the wrong way and were now trapped with forest and darkness above them and sheer cliff below them…they couldn’t get any further down the mountain. It was almost midnight and getting really cold…I called the conservation officer who had left only minutes before and she came back to investigate the situation. She went over the dam to have a look, but couldn’t see or hear them so she called in the Public Safety people (like Search and Rescue). They arrived quite quickly and had megaphones they could use to call up to the hikers. They eventually managed to get the hikers down but it was so dark by then that I couldn’t see whether they had to rock climb up and help them down, or just how they managed to get them off the mountain. In any event, I’m thankful for Joel’s sharp eyes in spotting them and that Search and Rescue was there to help the hikers, who must have been scared to death, freezing cold and tired as all get out by then. That will be an adventure they’ll never forget. (The mountain pictured here is the one they were stuck on…they got stuck about three quarters of the way down.)

We had our usual Sunday breakfast of pancakes on the grill over the fire (a “Tom” specialty) and then we went and cleaned up a few sites. It was almost noon and people were packing up and leaving. Too bad as the sun was shining and the sky was blue and it was a beautiful day. We came back and my brother Kim arrived shortly after that. He’s living in Calgary for a couple years supervising some new construction his company is working on. I cooked up a nice late lunch of pork chops and roasted potatoes for everyone and we enjoyed the afternoon together. Poor Jamie was so tired from his weekend of partying and not sleeping well (in the car) that he left for home and his bed soon after eating. I hope he gets a good rest tonight.

Tom went to clean the last of the sites while I cleaned up around our campsite and got the trailer organized after all our company. It was sure nice to see everyone. Kristine and Joel will stay another night, but everyone else has gone home now. The weather is supposed to hold for a couple days so we’re going to enjoy it while it lasts. Maybe go fishing tomorrow or take one of the hikes in the area…or maybe just hang around and enjoy the day. There seems to be new/different flowers blooming every day now and I enjoy taking pictures of them and eventually will use them to draw from or scrapbook with. The latest I’ve found are the trilliums that seem to have suddenly blanketed the forest floor. They are a lot smaller than the ones I remember growing on the coast, but are plentiful and very pretty.

We went for a hike up to the waterfall on Monday...it was a wonderful little walk and so beautiful through the forest...I'm posting some pictures....this one of Oso after the hike is pretty cute!

As I sit in my lawn chair on the stone patio outside the fifth wheel, I can see a few teenagers on the shore across the lake. I can always tell when someone goes in the water because the splashing is accompanied by high pitched screams….the water is COLD, but they are having fun even so. I’m afraid I’m not as daring as they are…I’ll wait till we go to Mexico this winter and do my swimming in those lovely big pools where we can lounge in the sun afterwards and sip on a margarita. Yup…I’m enjoying retirement immensely!