Bonus Blog: Marti's Montreal Must See Memoir - Laurentians in the Fall - Post M2

Here is Marti’s account of our "must see" trip to Mont-Tremblant National Park

Laurentians in the Fall

"You HAVE to drive up to the Laurentians in the Fall!"  We've heard this since the first day we arrived in Montreal.  Now I know why....

The weather here this weekend was a glorious hit of Indian Summer - mid 70's and sunny. Time to get out of the city and see what was going in the oft-mentioned Laurentians, 135 km (85 miles) north of here. Our backyard trees have started turning, but the fall color is not quite peak in Montreal yet. The trees have announced football season: red maples saying, 'Go Big Red!' - green and gold birch chanting, 'Go Pack Go!' We figured it would be about the same at Mont Tremblant, the favored Laurentian Mountain place to color-gawk for 'Montrealais'.

The Saturday morning drive up was crazy busy - the drivers here are very courteous (Canada Nice compared to Denver Crazy) but the shear volume of cars on the lone highway headed north out of Montreal made for a very sloooow drive.  It seems everyone in Montreal had the same idea....but it was okay since that gave me (the driver) an opportunity to take in the spectacular views. It turns out that it was the PEAK color weekend in the mountains.

 

Once we got to 'Parc national du Mont Tremblant', we sat by a lake and ate part of our lunch while we planned our day. This Parc is Quebec's version of Glacier National Park - a gem in the province.....and very popular.  We found the trail we wanted to hike (along with a gazillion of our new best friends) and started the 3.5 km ascent to an observation look-out. It's a very well used trail - a hiking highway sporting all manner of footwear - hiking boots, hiking shoes, tennis shoes, sandals, fashion boots with heels (ouch), loafers, flip flops.....  "Bonjour...Bonjour....Bonjour".  The trail is a constant ascent with several resting spots/benches along the way.  Most benches had people taking a 'blow' - and some taking a smoke break, which we found ironic.....'if you didn't smoke, you might not need to stop to catch your breath!'  It was not a quiet walk in the woods - urban hikers like to chatter and make a lot of noise...but the beauty of the landscape won the day.

We were rewarded at the end of the trail with a view that was breathtaking - not from the ascent (or from smoking), but from the beauty. It is almost beyond words.....it looks like an exaggerated 'Bob Ross' oil painting; Alizarin crimson, Cadmium red, Viridian green, Indian yellow, dark Sienna.....

We spent time at the observation deck overlooking the lake and the surrounding mountains, taking pictures of the vistas and a few selfies..... and photo bombing other people's selfies.  When we'd soaked it in, we headed back down and took off on a much less traversed trail.  We only met a handful of people for the next 2 hours and it was wonderful...except we missed an unexpected turn. That could be why we only saw a few other people! We wanted to hike to Poisson Lac (Fish Lake) to see a waterfall but we missed the sign to turn left.  The hike was to be just over 2 km, but we walked and walked....and walked when finally Tom said, 'This is a lot longer than 2 km'.  We decided it was time to consult our $3 map and realized that there was a split in the trail (opps) and we were on the wrong side of the lake (opps) and we had hiked twice as far as we should have (all uphill - opps). So, we sat down on a moss covered stump and ate the 2nd half of our lunch in the waning sun before we turned around and headed back to the chatter.

We didn't get to the waterfall, but we saw a lot of other things we would have missed if we'd read the map: a huge rock wall covered with a variety of moss, trees growing out of rocks, the lowering sun shining on the striking colors of the hillside across the lake. We heard sounds we never would have heard if we'd been on the well traveled trail: a babbling brook (yes, brooks really do babble), birds announcing our presence, red squirrels on alert, water endlessly dripping off rock walls.... leaves falling.  It was a great day. And if you ever get to Montreal, you HAVE to drive up to the Laurentians in the Fall!