In Canada, Mama and Daddy decided that we should go up into the mountains for a few weeks. Sascha and I really didn’t want to go because we thought it would be like all the other times when we go up mountains: with no snow and they just made us walk long long distances. We also didn’t want to go because there were bears.

On the way (driving) to the Elfin Lakes we stopped at a big shop to buy new shoes and some mountain gear (at first we didn’t have the right shoes and things to go up). Soon after, (well for me, it was because I was sleeping but it was probably a long 2 hours for Mama) we stopped again, this time for Daddy to talk to some guy who rented us the car for a while. When we were finally back on route we turned off the motorway at last and went up a little road through a forest until we came to a little car park where we parked the car and put on our coats and went to the toilet. Then we started walking up the long, beautiful (eleven km) walk to Elfin Lakes.

Soon round a corner we saw the first bit of snow! (we didn’t know there was going to be snow!) We stopped there and sat down and played around on the tiny patch of snow. Then we continued up the mountain seeing loads of snow but just walking past it because we had already spent too much time in the snow.

We had some sandwiches that Daddy had made for lunch on a hill covered in snow. After a while there was so much snow it was quite hard to walk and it was also really really bright. At this point, we were walking on a thin path of snow and on one side there was a steep downhill that went down down down down and on the other side it was the same steepness but going up up up up.

We were all very thirsty and we stopped on the top of a ridge and Sascha and I made a snow melting center which we used to collect water in the water bottle which we drunk. From the ridge we could see Elfin Lakes. There were two frozen over, clear blue lakes, and a couple of huts. We walked down the path to a big, and a bit steep downhill and right in front of that, now we could see the two lakes, the huts and the tents and the snow-covered trees and bushes and the very bright white snow. we walked along a smooth path to the hut and went inside and Mama and Daddy unpacked while we explored the little hut.

Downstairs we found tables and we also found some games to play!

Upstairs there were lots of bunk-beds with no mattresses.  We had brought Aunty Sabita and Uncle Majid’s sleeping bags with us as mattresses. The bunk-beds were completely wood and the top it was not that safe because you could fall off and there were no railings to stop you falling off. Sascha, Elliot and I were all on the bottom bunk of 3 bunk beds and Mama and Daddy were on the top.

When we were outside with Sascha and Elliot we invented a game called Jedi training and one person would have a stick and the other person made a snowball then threw it at the other person and the other person had to hit it. The problem was  if you missed the snowball it would either go onto you or you would move out of the way and  it would go on the floor, but also if you hit it it would explode into lots of little bits of  snow and you would have snow down your shirt, on your jumper and on your hands.

Also for lunch or just to play we’d go to a little lunch hut and eat lunch or play Risk (which is a board game in the hut).

We also played arctic explorers and pretended to be exploring Antarctica. Also we made islands of snow in water and when the snow was melting we would make dams out of snow.

Risk was very fun and there were 4 different colours (for different teams) and a map of the world and some cards, and you had to conquer the world to win. I didn’t really like Risk but I liked the little plastic figures that you played it with.

Also, one day we went on a walk down the mountain we were on, through the valley, and then up another mountain, we saw some bear poo and we were really scared that we would get attacked by one.

We went all the way to a big fast-flowing river that was really really freezing and Mama thought it was a glacier which was melting. It was also really cool because to get across there was just a thin metal plank with no handrail. We played on the other side of the rushing river, in the little patches of sand we made villages and roads and we also made train tracks across the rocks from on sand village to another and we made bridges out of sand over channels of water we had dug and the river had filled in, but soon enough the bridges fell in because of the water taking out sand of the starts of the bridges.

All the time Mama was having a nap on a (what looked like) a comfortable rock right by the river and almost all the time Daddy was on the phone sitting next to where Mama was lying down and every so often he would come and look at our little sand villages. We stayed there a few hours then we went back the way we came on the fun snowy path back to Elfin Lakes where Sascha, Elliot and I went to the little wooden hut to play Risk and wait for dinner or lunch, I can’t remember (though I think it was dinner). I remember the first night we slept in the house in 3 of the bunk beds and I was on the bottom of one. The first night it was only us and it was really peaceful. The second night there were two other men there and the third there was a whole crowd there.

In the end I really liked Elfin Lakes and we were all sorry to leave the beautiful lakes with the beautiful landscape and on the way back in loads of parts all the snow had melted and soon there was no snow left.

 

 

On  the way back  it seemed like it was 2 kilometres and not 11 and very (it seemed like) soon we got back to the car park and we went to the toilet and got in the car. For the first few minutes I was awake, then I fell into a deep (not very) deep sleep.

I suddenly got woken up by someone (probably Sascha (he never sleeps in the car)) and then…well, ummm…I’ve forgotten so I think that’s where it ends!