Hella

I got the idea of going on a walk to the top of Mount Royal from a tourism website. So this afternoon around 5pm I set out on a hike just up the road from the hotel to see what it was like. The walk quickly turned into several snow-covered switchbacks. For a while, there were views of some really neat houses and then it turned mostly into forest. There were quite a number of cross country skiers, people on bikes, and others just walking and chatting.

Upon reaching the top, I noticed a pretty nice ski lodge looking building and decided I’d check it out later. I was anxious to walk over to the lookout point and see the sites of downtown. I was there just after sunset and the lighting made the vista quite nice. I snapped a few shots and then headed into the lodge.

The lodge was really nice, with a gas-powered fire and chairs and tables for visitors. There was a group of 15 or so in front of the fire. I wandered on over to the vending machine and came away with a Coke, a Mars bar, and a milk chocolate Hershey’s bar. I haven’t seen Mars bars in the U.S. in quite some time and this one was dark chocolate on the outside with no almonds. Quite tasty after such a long, cold hike. I saw something weird (at least to me in the machine). One of the items was a bag of ketchup-flavored chips. Yuk!?

I spent some time resting then headed back down the path. By this time, it was pretty dark so I looked for shortcuts. By the time the trail got to the residential area, I found a way to get down to the street and back to the hotel.

Filed under: Travel