In the beginning we offered two day trips on the weekends. We had a campsite on the south side of the river where we could set up our teepee's for the weekend and make it a camping and rafting outing. There were many late nights around the campfire and then cooking breakfast on it in the morning. It was roughing it.
Access to the campground was by the Burnt Timber Gas Plant road. This road was nearly impossible to drive on once it was wet and bad at the best of times. We ran our trips on those back woods, gravel roads and they took there toll on the vehicles. Driving your car out to Mountain Aire Lodge was a real adventure - with all the hills, trucks and dust you could get a real surprise coming around any corner. It was an adventure to suddenly see wild horses, bears or moose ambling along as you crested a rise in the road.
The campsite was located at a half way point on the length of the section were there is whitewater on the Red Deer River. We would drive up toward Mountain Aire Lodge or farther west to start the whitewater trip. Here we would launch our day trip, rafting down to end at the campsite. It was nice to lay in the teepee and look out through the smoke flaps at the starlit Sky's at night. On the second day, after packing up, we launched our rafts from the campsite and continued on down the river to Coal Camp. This way we offered two different sections of the river on a two day trip.
Looking back at this photo I see that every summer has been a real adventure. Here it looks like everyone was in the sauna finally warming up.
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