RBF,
Be fair, the Cowley Wave Camp is in the Fall - the week before (Canadian)Thanksgiving. I've always known the camp you attended as the Cowley Summer Camp.
Having said that, I did my Diamond altitude climb on a blue wave day in July. Thermaling over the Porcupine Hills and reached 13,000' when things suddenly went very smooth! Climbed to 16,000' in the secondary and then penetrated west towards the primary. Ran into horrendous sink and turned and ran back to the Porcupines and started again!
This time I climbed to 18,000' in the secondary, which enabled me to fly upwind to the primary, which I contacted at about 12,000' and then went up to FL240.
I've also had the Cowley hail experience. I was driving from Pincher Station back to the field when I drove into a hail storm of such intensity that I thought the windshield was going to break. Had to stop due to zero visibility. Luckily, at the field, everyone had de-rigged before the storm hit.