Considering that the teens ( and a few of the adults too) worked hard to get to Assiniboine Lodge on Wednesday, we decided to to give the group a break. We stay here 3 days anyway and had planned on doing a few hikes around the lodge. Consequently, most of the teens slept in…until 2 or 3 girls got up at 9 AM and tried to wake up the boys by doing bear sounds around their cabin.
Me, I got up a little before 6 AM to take a few pictures of Mount Assiniboine mirrored in Reflection Pound. I will try to convince the teens to accompany me tomorrow morning to witness this awesome sight but I have doubts they’ll join in…It’s a shame because the view is well worth it as you’ll see in the pictures.
I also saw a deer this morning and I could approach it up to 3 meters. It was hanging around the pigs behind the lodge. That’s right: pigs at an altitude of 2130 meters! They eat all the leftovers so as to reduce the amount of thrash that as to be carried out by foot or helicopter. To do their part, the teens’s first task today is to sort the thrash they have accumulated so far.
Our hiking day was fairly light. All in all, we hiked less than 3 kilometers. Our trek brought us to Sunburst and Magog lakes where we fished and swam. Our guide Tamara was the first one to catch a fish followed by our nurse Naila that caught 2 trouts. Among the teens Isaac saved the reputation of Nova-Scotia’s inhabitants where he’s from by catching two big trouts.
An unusual sight today: we made a snowball fight on this 9th of August under a bright sunshine that got the temperature up to 25C! A few moments later, the mountain reminded us that it deserves respect: an avalanche mixed with an important rock fall happened right before our eyes. We were way out of range because the slide happened on an isolated and inaccessible slope, but the noise was breathtaking.
The teens being well rested now, we consider going for a neighboring summit tomorrow. Bring it on!
But in the mean time, there’s fun all around this evening…Francis is making a tattoo on Virginie’s shoulder, Isaac and Laurence are laughing while doing the dishes, Zoé is chatting away with Shéril and Crystal tries to teach the other teens how to pronounce the ‘th’ sound in English. The success of the class is uncertain at best but it makes for a lot laughter…