Day 17 - Emerald Lake

After the exertion of yesterday, today we relaxed a bit. We had a lie in and had a nice leisurely breakfast up at the lodge. After breakfast we sat in the lounge at the lodge and posted a couple of blog entries (the wifi is only accessible at the lodge).

We hadn’t explored the lake yet, so we decided we would walk the 5.5km trail around the lake shore. The weather was pleasant and the trail flat, so we thought jeans, trainers and a t-shirt. By the time we’d walked two minutes down the road we realised it was a lot hotter than we thought, so back to the lodge to change into shorts and vest.

We got going again, only for Laura to decided she wanted shorter shorts, so we went back for a second time and Laura got changed into short shorts. Success! We now were fully ready. We walked down to the lake side and got an ice cream from the kiosk and started the trail.

The trail was lovely and we got plenty of views of the lake and the red canoes that were being gently paddled around by hot looking tourists. We thought about renting a canoe, but decided that it was much more enjoyable looking out at the sight of a red canoe on a aquamarine lake than actually doing all the work involved in paddling. Plus, the rental price is about £25/hour AND we’ve already done a kayaking adventure, so we know what it’s like.

We saw butterflies and ground squirrels on the trail and lots of flowers. At the far end of the lake we crossed over the silt and moraine and read an interpretative panel about the fine glacial rock flour that is in the water and that gives it the deep blue colour (we already knew this though).

On a bridge crossing a river, we stopped and chatted to a dad and his two young girls. They had been soaking their feet in the river and I told them about how I’d swam in the lake yesterday and that it was cold.

We carried on chatting for a while. They were from Austin Texas originally but were now travelling for a few years. The two kids looked to be about 12 and 14. They joined us as we walked around the rest of the trail. The kids were lovely and got excited as we found various different berries. The dad explained that the kids are homeschooled by their mum; the dad is a software developer.

They’d been to lots of places (including Alaska) and lived on a farm for a few months. Now they were on their return journey.

They were staying in a campsite nearby and we felt a little ashamed when we admitted we’d splashed out and were staying in the Lodge for four nights.

We walked with them to the bridge, said goodbye and then decided that we hadn’t eaten for a while and that we were hungry enough for some lunch. We got a table at Cilantro (where we’d eaten on the first night), had a cool drink and shared a pizza.

The "jumping in" rock that was a 15 min walk from out lodge. About 12 min too far!

Eventually we came back to our room and sat on the balcony (more of an enclosed porch really) overlooking the lake and wrote some more blog. Sometimes the blog feels like it’s hard work, but we both enjoy writing it. Irrespective of that it’s for our own benefit as we like to go back and read the blog in the future and remind ourselves of the fun things we did.

I looked through the binoculars at boats on the lake, glaciers, rocks, trees too. It was fun. We decided that we’d earned a hot tub session by now, so we got changed and made our way to the clubhouse.

We chilled in the hot tub for a while and chatted to a retired guy from Chicago. He told us lots of things and was lovely. When he got out we chatted to the two American couples that we’d been seeing around the place for the last few days. They were aloof and we couldn’t quite work out if they were being reserved or whether they were just snooty. Whatever, we were glad when the left as they were just a bit cold and difficult to talk too.

The hot tub was really hot. 40 degrees to be precise, so there was lots of sitting on the edge and leg dangling every now and again to cool down.

The view from the hot tub

After this we went back, got changed and headed out for an early dinner. I wanted to sit on the patio, but the tables were all busy so we sat inside and waited for a table to become free. Laura said we should just sit inside, but I wanted to sit outside as it seemed nice and it was hot inside. Eventually a table opened up, and then another, and then a third all within a few seconds. Oooh, this was our chance! Except that the reason they were moving inside was that it was raining. Ah. So we now felt a little bit smug (sorry, did I say we, I meant Laura).

After a few minutes the sky got a lot darker and a big thunderstorm started. The lightning was really close. We watched it strike the nearby mountains and the flashes were really close, happening about twice a minute. Shortly after, it started hailing and the hail stones were huge (well, probably in the region of pistachio or chickpea sized).

All the guests had run in by now and were stood watching the thunderstorm and so were the staff. Apparently this is quite unusual and nobody could remember such a heavy storm. It was really impressive to watch. One guy in the restaurant said he’d seen a couple in a canoe out on the lake, vigorously paddling to the shore when the storm struck. Eeek!

Within half an hour the storm had passed and it was blue sky again. The hail didn’t melt for hours though.

We sat in the lounge of the lodge afterwards (amongst the stuffed deer heads, grand fireplaces and sofas) before retiring to bed.