Mount Ambler, Canada Day 2023 long weekend in Grande Cache

 For Canada Day long weekend 2023 we decided to go for our annual hiking trip to Grande Cache area in Alberta.

Most people arrived Friday afternoon. The weather looked to be so cloudy, rainy , muddy, wet and moist for a while, that the best mode of transportation appeared to be the long, abandoned canoe that we found in the visitors park. Everybody fit nicely inside the canoe, including Ada, Grace, Bo, Jacek, Marian, Boris, Ela, and with Dragan and Keith at the helm. Andy (not shown) took the photo.

But after the arrival of 4 more people shortly after 9 pm, the weather started to improve. It must have been the sunny personalities of Basia, Gosia, Holy and Mike that chased the clouds away.

After saying HELLO to all our friends that we haven't seen in a long time, we started our planning session for the next day hiking, under the leadership of Boris.

The next morning the weather was not looking very promising,

 but we chased the clouds away with our morning dance and morning yoga.

Our goal the first hiking day was Mount Ambler, which is not usually a very difficult mountain,

however some of the conditions that we encountered, like large muddy puddles, added a degree of "fun" to our trip that day.

Another "fun" part that we had to struggle with was a large number of fallen trees that were blocking the trail.

However, even the toughest conditions could not stop our wonderful ladies (and guys) from pushing ahead.

Bo negotiated all obstacles in the form of fallen trees with a smile.

Luckily, Dragan had his large machete with him that day and he put it to a good use clearing the path for us.

After a few hours of fighting with nature, we came finally to an alpine meadow just above the tree line.

 

Now we could increase the pace quite a bit in the open area

and after the next bend our leader Boris spotted the summit, our goal for the day.

Pretty soon we reached the summit , with Ada being the first on the top...

 

 

...and everybody had a chance to have their picture taken with the "mailbox" on the top individually,

..... and as a group.

We enjoyed some absolutely Stunning views of the peaks and valleys from the top

but soon it was time to start our descent and to go back down, because we had one more important event to attend.

After negotiating the same obstacles (fallen trees and mud) again on the way down, 

finally we reached back our parking spot at around 5 pm, with Ada looking quite happy.

After a nice dinner, during which we were joined by Pam, Andrzej and Beatka who just arrived,

we had another celebration to attend to.

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It just happened that during our trip to Grande Cache we had a very nice opportunity to take part in the 34th Wedding Anniversary of our friends, Beatka and Andrzej, that we celebrated in style with speeches, greetings, singing and Champagne.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY LOVEBIRDS!!!