Burgess Shale - Summer Camp 

  Friday, 9 -11 August 2013. 

After a failed attempt last year to be able to book this trip, we finally got on this year. We were able to book a great group site at Johnston Canyon for our base camp. 

It turned out to be a choice location. Our site backed onto Johnston Creek with the trail to do Johnston Canyon between us and the creek. 5 Minute hike and we were on the other side of the hwy and at the start of the trail. We stopped at Banff on our way down Friday. Had to hit the candy store for some needed trail / hiking supplements.  After setting up camp, we did the full Johnston Canyon hike to both the upper and lower falls.  Met a very interesting Raven at the lower falls. Turns out he was quite infamous with the rangers as well. The Ranger that took us on our Burgess Shale hike even knew him. She indicated the Raven knows the park staff quite well.  (The guys that don't feed you). We weren't in that category.

Got up at 5:00 am so we could get in a heavy breakfast, pack up a lunch and drive to Takakkaw falls parking lot by 7:15. Just barely made it.  There Lydia and Jeff were waiting for us. They were great. Lydia knew tons about fossils and all the background to Burgess Shale. Jeff knew lots about the plants and was assisting Lydia. He hadn't had much exposure to the Burgess Shale and had volunteered to help to be able to get more experience. It's a secure site and they told us all about folks that tried sneaking in to steal  fossils. They have motion detectors and video surveillance equipment setup all around the quarry site.  The hike was 10 hours and of that we took an hour at the quarry. There were lot of fossils we were able to find. 

After hiking back we took a trip over to Takakkaw falls. We were able to see it from the mountain we climbed to get to the quarry. Seemed quite spectacular from the view we had on the other side of the mountain range.  Some of us took rain coat as you could see a ton of spray coming off the falls. We definitely got wetter the closer we got. There was a cool rainbow that we got picture in. Some of the boys ventured past the end of the walkway and started scrambling up the rocks to get closer to the falls. It gets really wet here. The falls actually cause quite a strong wind, and with the wet rocks on a steep incline, it was tough going. We got some cool videos of that part. 

Evenings provided some play time and everyone really got into Kick-the-Can. Lots of places to hide and sneak up to that can.  First night the game went well past dark. The tent conversations didn't end till past 2:30 am the first night. The 2nd night the Bishop, Syd and the other boys met up with us. They did the Ink Pot's hike while we were at Burgess Shale. 

Sunday we broke camp, got cleaned up, and headed to Banff for Church.  Lots of wild life along the way. Got stuck in a bit of a traffic jam as tourist stopped on the hwy to get bear pictures. Met up with some elk right in town. They at least used the side walk and not the road. Had a nice session at church and then we headed back home. Some of the boys imagined there could be ice-cream back at the church in Calgary. Optimistic thinking on  their part, but after unloading the gear the boys checked out the kitchen fridge and low and behold someone left a bucket of ice-cream in there.  Sweet ending to a great camp.