We were up at a reasonable hour (that's not early!) for breakfast in the "Cookhouse". The cookhouse hosts all the meals and is kept cosy by a wood-burning range which is also used for all the cooking. One long table has seating for guests, Laura (who owns and runs the place) and her crew. The food was wholesome and Laura always made sure there was more than we could healthily eat. A typical breakfast included fresh fruit, bacon, pancakes, maple syrup and toast. The dogs and Anthony, one of the crew, always demolished left-overs.

The morning was damp and misty and as the other guests were an English family with youngish children Laura took us out on a trail up through forest to a couple of lovely, high alpine meadow areas. The trails around the cabins have all been cut by Jack, a friend of Laura's, working with horses. Laura pointed out signs of bear activity along the way - pooh (or scat if you're being polite), tracks and the characteristic marking of trees where bears scratch off bark to show other bears their territory. The higher up the tree the bigger the bear! We also learnt to tell elk from bear hairs: bear hairs are finer in texture and are varied in colour along their length. We saw sulphur, fritillary and small blue butterflies and the occasional squirrel. Some of the plants were familiar - wild strawberries (delicious!), dead nettle, potentilla, geranium, campanula but there was plenty that was unfamiliar too such as Indian Paintbrush. And so many different types of fungus! The walk was a little gentle for us and the views were limited by cloud and being in forest most of the time. However, learning about the wildlife from Laura was fascinating and actually set us up well to get the most out of the following days.

It was really quite a lovely walk, if a bit short. The lunch stop was a lesson though in how voracious the mosquitos are here. We were both bitten through clothing: Dave collecting an enormous number of bites on his shoulders and back and Jill around here ankles. As is ever the way with mosquito bites Jill suffered much more with her's than Dave did but thankfully the antihistamine tablets do work!

Back in our cabin we had time to relax before the evening meal and watch out for squirrels and the rather strange snow-shoed hares that foraged around the cabin. We'd actually assumed that the hares were rabbits when we first saw them but closer inspection found their large 'snow-shoe' back legs that give them their name.

Dinner was yet another huge meal but not quite up to Laura's usual standards as she'd designated one of the volunteer helpers, Nick, to be cook for the day - this was his first time as cook and he was rather anxious about what he was doing. Everything was perfectly edible - just not perfect! His Saskatoon berry pie was delicious but collapsed to the point of being a collection of berries and pastry rather than a pie and we understand the lemon meringue pie didn't make it at all. After dinner we played 'Uno' with the family: with Jack their eleven year-old reminding Dave how to play and teaching Jill. Jack told us that in all his Uno playing experience he'd never won a game: he had his first win playing with us!