McArthur Lake
We had a bit of the ham that was leftover from last night’s supper, together with oatmeal, for today’s breakfast. It was a beautiful warm and sunny day. We hiked to McArthur Lake and saw mountain goats on the side of the mountain as we climbed up from Schäffer Lake. We probably wouldn’t have noticed them but there were three men from Herbert, Saskatchewan there and they pointed them out. We followed the men for a while, but they got ahead of us as I was taking lots of pictures.
The lake was covered with a lot of ice floes. It was very beautiful with the sapphire blue water reflecting the mountains between the sparkling white ice on the lake.
We ate lunch here, and afterwards talked to a fellow camper. He was easily identified as he was wearing a kilt (which Enid and I both commented to each other must be rather unpleasant with the amount of mosquitos about). Later after we were finished eating we were sitting facing the lake. Suddenly we heard a shout from high behind us, “Watch out for the marmot!” We turned and a marmot that was right behind us scampered away. A few more seconds and it would have been into the remains of our lunch. The Saskatchewan people were high above us and had been watching the marmot’s approach.
We came back on the low trail which was easy to come down, but wouldn’t be as nice to go up. Then we took the McArthur cutoff to see where the Odoline trail branches off, and continued back along the Big Larches trail. This was the poorest trail we’ve been on, heavily rooted, steep, and with a lot of rough boulders throughout the trail. We wished we had not come down it.
This evening we sat around the campfire and were reading a bit, but did not get much read. A young couple came and asked if they could sit by the fire as well. We said “of course”, and I commented on her accent which I thought was German. She said she was Dutch, from Belgium, and so we had a very interesting conversation with them, and with a family from BC, and a teenager originally from Russia who was there with his family, now from Calgary who also joined us at the firepit. The Dutch couple were both involved in education, so I had a lot in common with them, and all of us learned a lot about each other’s cultures. We finally went to bed as it was getting dark.
Enid and I commented that one of the things we miss about camping in more developed campsites in Canada and the USA is this kind of conversation with fellow campers. It just doesn’t happen when everyone is in their own individual RV. It did take place a lot in Australia because of the communal kitchens in the caravan parks, and was something we really enjoyed as you got to meet and learn from all the different people sharing a common interest in travel and camping.