I’m sure banana boats are engraved into the summer memories of frequent campers. Truth to be told, I had never been ‘legit camping’ until earlier this month. Even then, it was pretty glamorous (#glamping) with two massive tents, portable grill, and hot showers. Being the first trip of summer 2016 and one with five of my favourite people (our nickname is the Castle family), I was buzzing with excitement. Over a month later, I’m still feeling them good vibes.

Our trip started off with successfully stuffing our rental mom-mobile with an insane amount of stuff. I’ve never seen a van so full in my life. We hadn’t even bought groceries yet. The 6 camping chairs we were going to leave behind eventually made it into the van, even if it meant we couldn’t really go any faster than 80 km/hr. And that’s how we went up the Sea to Sky Highway, with Lukas Graham’s ‘7 Years’ playing over and over again because we only had one radio station to listen to. We made a stop for lunch at a pie shop, and spent some time at the beach while the boys tried to find crabs. According to our resident biologist, since there were no barnacles, there would be no crabs. Despite writing an entire research paper on Hemigrapsus oregonensis, I learned something new that day.

To celebrate one of our friend’s graduation, we planned a surprise for the next morning. With our best attempt at keeping quiet, the rest of us finished up our DIY tie-dye shirts by writing our surnames on the back (To mask the squeaking of the markers, which sounded like scratching, we would exclaim “Oh man these mosquito bites are sooooo itchy!”) and then slipping it over our many layers of clothing; nighttime was much colder than we had anticipated. Each of us went to a different entrance of the other tent and on the count of three, unzipped the door and yelled “SURPRISE!” Unfortunately he didn’t even open his eyes. Not even when his girlfriend leaped onto his bed and shook him. Well, that was that and the rest of us went to make breakfast. We had very well charred cinnamon buns (my bad for putting the grill on too hot) before going on a hike to the bottom of a waterfall. That was quite an adventure as it wasn’t a marked trail and Chew only had vague tips from online sources such as “walk across a mossy patch”. Okay the entire field is mossy. Once we came across the first group of other hikers, who pointed us in the general direction of the falls, we made it there and back safely. Definitely a team bonding activity as we had to help each other over rock fields and put six brains together to decide which direction to go.

The overnight rain soaked our baggage but didn’t dampen our spirits. There was a selection of hiking trails that started at our campsite, and seeing that the rain stopped by mid-morning, we decided to try a short but steep hill that promised sweeping views of the surrounding valley. Unfortunately for us it was super misty that day so we didn’t even know that we reached the top because we couldn’t see anything. We took a few photos next to the radio antenna or power generator and then went back down to the lake, where we saw the cutest family of geese with 7 baby ducklings (or geeselings?). The afternoon was spent trying to light a fire in a damp fire pit. We watched Abe build tipis with tiny sticks for probably three hours with not much luck. Meanwhile, our resident princess lounged in a camping chair holding his ‘lucky match’. That match never ended up getting used and made it back to Vancouver instead. By dinnertime we had a fire going and since it was our last night, we put in all the remaining firewood and made a raging fire. Chew had the most fun that evening burning and scraping a 3 metre stick down to about 1 metre. We watched in silence, mesmerized by the flying sparks.

Cooking dinner together was one of the trip’s highlights. Our bountiful meals added to the glamping experience; for example, we had one-pot tomato basil pasta one of the nights. Most of the girls in our Castle family share a sweet tooth so we looked forward to campfire desserts more than dinner itself. These banana boats were so good even Az, who normally doesn’t care much for sweets, ate two!

It was really Chew who came up with this sweet and salty combination. Even though I love a bit of salt in my desserts, my mind was fixated on classic s’mores with graham crackers, marshmallow, and chocolate. Thank goodness Chew brought along a jar of crunchy peanut butter and that we came across pretzel goldfish crackers (on sale!) during our group grocery trip. It made for a truly bomb-diggity dessert.

You don’t have to be on a camping in order to enjoy this recipe. Banana boats can be just as easily made on your barbecue grill or in an oven. I’ve written the recipe to yield 1 banana boat to make it easy to multiply as needed. Multiply the recipe by as many mouths as you need fed. Gather your friends and family, grab a spoon and dig into this gooey delight under the summer night sky!