Mt Tremblant - in summer

A quick trip to Mt Tremblant.

Mt Tremblant is two hours north of Montreal and was one of our favourite skiing locations during winter. We were keen to return during summer, to explore the village a little more and also explore the National Park area.

As I said in my Ottawa post, in hindsight this was too much to do in too short a time. It was a two hour drive to Mt Tremblant, and we arrived in the village at the same time as a thunderstorm, complete with thunder and lightning. We took shelter in a local cafe for a while until the worst passed. We continued further up into the National Park, where once again, we were overwhelmed by mosquitos.

It was too late to do anything other than an evening walk around our area. The scenery is magical and is the stuff that postcards are made of. With a clear sky, so many of our photos show perfect symmetry. We were camping on a large, clear, mountain lake, where we spotted deer at the water edge. The hills are covered in the greenest of pine trees, so dense that you can't see the ground at all. The mountains surrounding are very old mountains. Around 10 000 years ago, glaciers came down the mountains to create the valleys. Up high, the mountains are sheer rock faces.

It's close to perfection. 

And this again. 

The main reason we returned to Mt Tremblant was to do some canoeing. Tony had discovered some guided canoe trips which seemed something that the children could handle. They managed with ease. We paddled for 3 hours down a river, with a guide sharing her knowledge of the area. We didn't manage to see beavers unfortunately - but we did see deer and ducks. It was so peaceful and we felt so far from civilisation. We stopped along the way for swims. This river freezes during winter, but the water is not too deep so it warms quickly and was a beautiful temperature for swimming.

But ... those mosquitos! We couldn't stand outside to eat our lunch as we were all getting bitten. Poor Sophie has about 6 bites on her face along; her legs and ankles are much worse. Olivia, Lachlan and I have many, many bites ... and Tony .... got one bite! Out of all the time in Oka and here in Tremblant, he received just one bite. And it itched. Poor him.

Bertha is due to be returned tomorrow, so unfortunately we couldn't explore Tremblant much more on foot or on our bikes, much to our disappointment. As I said, a quick trip and we would have loved more time, but our time in Quebec is about to end.