May long weekend

I had such a fun weekend! Saturday was YSA temple day. Each ward had a time slot to do baptisms. My ward's was super early in the morning. I went with Jas and Janae's ward though because we made plans to go to Waterton for the afternoon from the temple. So rather than waiting around Cardston for hours for them, I just  went at the same time as them. That was a really nice way to start the weekend. I love being in the temple, and serving there.

So Saturday afternoon we hit the road to Waterton and decided to hike to Crandell Lake! I love that hike. Its a pretty easy and short one, with a nice little lake at the end. The weather was perfect hiking weather. It was cool, so when you were moving you were only slightly warm. It was a bit cold when you weren't moving, and the wind at the lake was a little unpleasant, but overall pretty good. Jas and Janae were surprised when we saw the end of the hike in sight. It helped that we talked the whole way, that made it go faster too, but it is a short hike. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera with me, so no pictures of us at the lake...but never fear, when we got back down Jas said "Lets do another hike!!" so I have pictures from bears hump!

I haven't done bears hump in years! I dont remember the last time I hiked it. My family used to do it all the time when I was young, but I guess we got sick of it. I thought I might die while I was doing it but I made it! It wasn't horribly windy at the top, so that was good. I mean its bears hump-so there was some wind, but not near as bad as there could have been. Just enough to give janae a nice comb over. A guy came up a little after us and was taking pictures of his dog up there. It was kind of funny. And a little squirrel was trying to be friends with us too. I educated Jas and Janae on the fact that you aren't supposed to feed animals in waterton. Haha...I'm such a nerd. My family has always been real sticklers about that rule though. No habituating the animals!

We then proceeded to get ice cream (yeah yeah I shouldn't eat it. It doesn't make me sick in waterton-thats my story and I'm stickin to it) from the big scoop. Their supplier went out of business last year, and I think they are having issues finding a good new one. The Heavenly hash was a bit of a dissapointment...the prailenes and cream was as good as ever though! Then we headed home and watched a chick flick.

Monday we added one more person to our trio, Eden, and went back out to waterton! We left at 8:30ish in the morning and Janae wanted to do the Wall lake hike. I told her there was probably still lots of snow up there, and suggested birtha falls/lake might be a good one. But we decided to check out wall lake anyways. So we took a nice drive up the cameron lake road, to indeed find tons of snow. Seeing as Jas had runners with holes in them, and if the beginning of the trail looked the way it did, I didn't want to find out what further up the trail looked like, we turned around and headed to Birtha. We didn't even see any wildlife along the road to make the drive worth it haha. Thats ok though. It started raining right as we got to the Birtha trailhead, so we all put on our rain gear...me in a camo poncho, the rest in more normal looking coats.

We had to pass cameron falls to get the Birtha trailhead, so of course we had to take the classic Waterton shot 

The hike to the falls was good. There is a longer upward stretch in which I was getting tired, but overall I faired pretty well. I think I was still a little tired from Saturday, combined with not getting enough sleep made this hike a bit harder for me though. The rain got us thoroughly damp all the way through, especially since I was getting too warm with my poncho and took it off partway through. We didn't let the rain bother us though!

I believe this is at the look out point

Birtha Falls

When we got to the falls we debated whether or not to keep going to the lake. Jas was all for it and I think the rest of us were a little hesitant. Well Janae might have been too, she said she didn't care. Eden and I weren't all for it. Well I really wanted to because I don't think I've actually gone to the lake, just the falls, but I also wasn't sure I could do any more and not be a wreck at the end....Eden was tired but didn't want to hold us back, so we decided to try it. Not too long after the falls we found snow, and there was more and more as we went. It was also more steadily up/switch backs then the first part to the falls, I was getting really tired. We took frequent breaks and I was feeling semi-asthmatic....first time in a long time I've had that problem (mostly because its the first time I've really been active in quite a while haha). Eden was kinda dying and so every time we took a break we would ask her if she wanted to turn back. she wanted to, but didn't want to be the one to make us turn around....so we kept going for quite a while. Then I started being less tired because I was having fun in the snow with Jas. But we got to a point where Eden wouldn't humour us any longer because a) she was tired b) she's apparently scared of heights (I don't know what her idea of hiking is but why she wanted to go hiking with that problem was a little beyond me) c) the snow was a bit slippery and she was scared of falling down the mountain. So we did the walk of shame and turned back, found a big mound of snow to have some food since we didn't make it to our lunch destination and then continued down. Eden was probably right about it getting dangerous though...I was just thinking about going up, but going down was trickier, so it was probably for the best we didn't keep going. Plus I was pretty tired too as much as I didn't want to be. At least I wasn't the one to have to say I had enough hahaha.

haha this about sums up Edens hiking experience

having so much fun!

this is where we made it to and Eden wouldn't come, so we had her take a pic and we turned back

the walk of shame haha

our lunch spot

We saw some other people coming back that also tried to go to the lake and turned back though, so we felt less like sissies haha.

I was pretty happy with myself that I was able to do three hikes in one weekend. I mean they weren't super hard ones, but for me it was a big step up from what I've been able to do lately so I'm pleased! My health is slowly getting better! And I had so much fun too! Definitely going to waterton lots this summer!