River Cove (Kananaskis, Bragg Creek) - Stake Winter Camp

This camp was organized by Shawn Jensen of the Calgary South Stake.

Nice group camp site right near Paddy's Flats and the Ice Caves.  The first day (the 16) was too cold -25 Celsius so the camp was postponed 1 day.  We brought along our deluxe winter tent that came with a wood burning stove.  We could have used a few more pegs but we made due.  Scouts are resourceful if they are not prepared.  The rest of the day was a bit warmer and they had a hike to the ice caves planned. Lucky for the 1st group as the gate was left open the the group was able to drive all the way in. About 6km. 

Our group had a hike down to the river when we spotted a nice cut line on the other side going down to he river. It made a perfect toboggan run. We back tracked to the highway to cross over the bridge. We had grabbed the super tube and pumped it up. That took a while. Then we bush whacked our way though the bush on the other side of the river. We finally found the spot and it was indeed a sweet hill. A slight obstacle at the bottom was a large hydro pole, but we were confident we could bail before it became a threat. 

We headed back and had our dinner and lots of hot chocolate. No shortage of food the the 1 day cut of the itinerary.  We to a bit of time to setup our snares to see if we could catch a rabbit and after we chopped a pile of would realizing we would need a good load to make it through the night. The stove in the tent could only fit enough wood to burn max 2 hours. So someone had the job of stocking up the stove at regular intervals. Leaving it too long meant you actually had to start up a fire in the stove.  Well it got quite cold. bottomed out at -19 Celsius. Everyone seamed to have good foamys and sleeping bags and extra sleeping bags. We had the toques and mitts on inside the bags with our parkas over our bags. The mummy bags had the draw strings synched right up to only expose our faces. 

Morning came and no one froze, we had a great breakfast and then headed back to the camps to start the pack up process. We checked the snares but no rabbits, too noisy we suspected. A couple boys found a spot where water was running down a hill slope behind our tents. the flow was slow enough to continually freeze over. The light covering of snow hid the ice but the exploring nature of scouts soon revealed it as the greatest sliding opportunity of the day. The slope was quite steep and this was a forested area. Didn't take long to see the casualties rack up, but the boys wouldn't let the odd concussion with a tree slow them down even if it was straddled. Leaders eventually had to shut it down knowing the wrath of the Mothers in letting their boys loose on such a dangerous activity. 

They had wood caring and the hike top the ice caves. after that we headed for home. All in all a great camp.