Trip to the mountains

Today we drove up to the mountains to do a little hiking. The mountains here are even closer than in Calgary. We had to drive only about 25 minutes from our house. There is a big lake up there (called Big Almaty Lake!) and a river of snow melt that comes down the mountain. We drove up as far as the car could take us and then hiked around.

Here's Olivia at the start of our hike:

Part way up we found a spot on the river that was relatively calm. Most areas had only rapidly moving water. The girls took off their shoes to get in. It was really cold but I dared Emily and Marcy to walk out there for a photo:

Here's Emily's look of pain after coming back out of the water:

We stopped on the way home to have some local "plof" which is basically rice pilaf but for some reason they had none (have to get used to that.) But, we drank some local brew, found out they make a pretty good pizza, and the girls got some milkshakes so everyone was happy. We'll have to go out for "plof" again another time.

While Almaty is not the most picturesque in general, if the mountains are in clear view it's actually very nice. This photo was taken just around the corner from our house. We'll try to enjoy the views and the weather while we can!