Mid-November Camping

So Adam and I had this crazy idea to go camping on Friday. We decided to load up the car and head out to the natural Hot Springs in Whiteswan Provincial Park. It is about a four hour drive out there. We stopped along the way to take some fun pictures. Our first stop was the Burmis Tree in the Crowsnest Pass. It is so beautiful we just had to stop and take some pictures.

Adam checking out the Burmis Tree

It was pretty chilly when we stopped to take pictures. That should have been our first hint that it was a wee bit cold to go camping. But we keeping on going of course. Our second stop was the World's Biggest Truck (seriously who can resist that?!) We have driven by it before but we pretended to be too cool to take pictures.. this time we gave in and did the nerdy tourist thing.

When we got to the Whiteswan Provincial Park turnoff the sun was already starting to go behind the mountains. We decided to pass up the Hot Springs for the night and go set up our tent and have some supper. It was already starting to get dark when we got the tent up and it was only about 5. Most of the wood out there was wet and so it took quite a while to get a fire going. After a lot of work Adam got us a good cooking fire going and we made our smokies. By then it was pitch black and we were getting cold. We decided to head to the tent to snuggle down for the night not realizing it was probably only 7 o'clock. We woke up and 11 and were wishing it was morning. We had no thermarests so the ground was hard and freezing cold. I was just glad we could zip the sleeping bags together or I would have been frozen by morning. We also came to realize how creepy it is to be the only ones in a campground at night. After a long night we woke up to a beautiful view and frost on the car.

The beautiful view I caught on the drive up to the campsite.

The view from our campsite.

Beautiful morning view

We packed up the tent and headed down to the Hot Springs. The benefit of getting there in the early morning is avoiding the crowds. There were only two other people there when we arrived. It looked like there was quite the party there the night before - Adam said "Well that's usually the two things that get left behind at parties - beer cans and socks." The Hot Springs were a nice, warm treat after the cold night we had.

The walk down to the Hot Springs

The view from the Hot Springs

Despite the cold and the horrible sleep, we had a lot of fun. It was definitely an adventure! I was definitely glad to get back to my warm, comfy bed though. It is so amazing to make memories with the ones you love.