Let The Countdown begin!

I am going to visit my parents in Saudi Arabia for Chrismas this year! I am so excited to see them and to see where they live. This in my chain link countdown- 90 days to go!

Waterton Alberta

I have been meaning to post this blog for quite a while but never got around to it, but the pictures are too beautiful to not post, so better late than never. My friend Van and I drove down to Waterton National Park last month to go camping for the weekend. Waterton is about a three hour drive south of Calgary and it is SO beautiful! Well we arrived in Waterton pretty late, and had a hard time finding the campground in the dark and with very bad directions off the internet. We finally did find out camp ground at 1:00 am, but to our surprise there was already a tent set up in our campsite! We woke the people up and talked it over with them. It turns out they didn’t know they needed to pre-book the site and were just going to pay for the place in the morning. It was late and it made no sense for them to pack up and leave so we just pitched our tent beside them and went to bed. (And when I said “we” pitched the tent I really mean Van)
I had been told about a beautiful hike on an island in Waterton called the Crypt Lake Hike. I had wanted to do it for a long time so the next morning we woke up early, went to the store and packed ourselves some lunch. We then took a boat across Upper Waterton Lake to the island. The Hike was beautiful! It is a three hour hike to the top and three hours back, and very worth it! We hiked past 4 waterfalls: Hell Roaring Falls, Twin Falls, Burnt Rock Falls, and Crypt Falls. We tool so many spectacular pictures on the hike I wish I could post them all. Van of course carried the back pack the entire way- The only picture we have where I’m carrying the backpack was before we ever took the boat across the river. My feet had blisters, my hips were killing me, and I definitely did not have enough water. I did offer to help out a few times, but thank goodness van never took me up on it. The hike had a little of everything, waterfalls, rivers, flat part and very steep parts. sometime were were walking through trees and shaded, but we also had parts where there were no trees and we could see for a million miles. Near the top we walked along a ledge beside a cliff. This had one of the best views of where we had hiked so far. Then there was a small steel ladder to climb which lead to a 60 foot tunnel through the mountain, and at the very top was the beautiful Crypt Lake. I could have stayed up there for hours, but the last boat was leaving the island in just over three hours. If you miss the last boat you stay on the island with no one else but the bears! We did get very close to missing it since we got caught in some hail, then near the end Van and I both felt like we might have taken a wrong turn so we spent some time debating whether or not to turn around. We made it back the shore in time though, with about 10 minutes to spare- thank goodness!
That night I had my heart set on having a bon fire, but we fell asleep and slept over 13 hours! The next morning I still had my craving for smores so that’s what we had for breakfast, smores and hot dogs. That afternoon we went into town and visited Kilmorey Lodge, where my parents spent their honeymoon. Then we spent sometime up at Cameron Lake which was also extremely beautiful. If you've never been to Waterton you need to go! I can't wait to do this hike again with my dad someday, and with anyone else that wants to go - you'll just need to carry that backpack!