No, no bear ....

Wij hebben momenteel meer Engelstalige dan Nederlandse lezers op ons weblog, daarom gaan we over op het onderhouden van ons blog in alleen maar Engels. Voor de meeste Nederlanders immers totaal geen probleem, en het scheelt ons toch wel veel werk als we het niet meer tweetalig opschrijven. Hieronder het eerste stukje dat alleen maar in het Engels zal verschijnen .....

Sunday we hiked Cascade Amphitheatre on Norquay mountain near Banff. On our drive up the mountain to the trail head we already saw a lot of animals: a black bear, bighorn sheep and elk. About one hundred meters after leaving the skiing area there was a sudden loud noise in the tight shrubs, about 2 meters or so next to us. Then the true nature of people comes out: I led out a yell so loud they must have heard it in Banff, and before Sander even thought about acting on the sound I had turned around, nearly trampled him and was running away. I stopped after a couple of meters in a safe distance. Also safe because no animal had jumped out of the bushes to attack us. Sander was still standing in the same place, quietly, just observing what was happening. And it turned out there was only one very nosy deer that had been resting in these shrubs, no dangerous animals at all! Ah well, these Dutchies will never get used to Canadian wildlife, such weenies! So much for all the advice they give you in the national parks: observe, back away quietly, stay calm. I know now that we'd better never run into an aggressive bear, because I will just freeze, scream on the top of my lungs and do all the wrong stuff. Our whole hike we were loud and made lots of noises, just to be on the safe side, no encounters on our very last Canadian hike! Although it was just deer, we were startled and our mind was set on "wildlife".
The hike was beautiful, the last half was pretty steep, a good work out! My muscles were still pretty sore from my 10k run on Saturday, so the quads burnt on the way down too! Our reward was a beautiful meadow, surrounded by high mountains, the amphitheatre of course. Part of the meadow was still covered in snow but we found a great dry spot in the grass. It was so hot in the sun that we started applying sun screen. Oh, life is good!!