Harmony Lake: Jellybean station or my legs will turn to jello

 (F: Daddy, we have to hurry up, otherwise we might miss the jellybean station. 

Normally I am not a big fan of bribery in parenting, but when it comes to making my almost 4 year old hike, I will do basically anything to make it fun for her. So far I have found that bringing her best friend, who is almost two years older, along is the best. Other kids will also work as long as they are not too fast. Playing a chase game or a hidden game can also help move things along. However, on the away to Harmony Lake, there is no doubt that things could have easily turned out very different without the jellybean stations. Our friend, Scott, would occasionally hike ahead, get out the bag of jellybeans and if the kids showed up within a certain time frame they would all receive a jellybean. 

Scoot and Sandra had invited us to spend the weekend with them in Whistler. Sunday morning (Oct. 1st) Scott and Christian had run up the mountain, and Sandra, my dad and I had taken the kids up the gondola on Whistler Mountain. The goal was the Harmony Lake loop. After taking the peak-to-peak back and forth we started the hike, but right out of the gate F declared her legs to be way to tired for walking. We hadn't really explain to her that we were planning on hiking and now we were paying for it. It took Christian a solid 15 min to get her going. The going was slow until Scott broke out the jellybeans, but then the hiking was smooth the rest of the day.

We had a nice lunch at Harmony Lake, did the little loop and then hiked back along the Harmony Meadows trail. A total of 3.5 km and around 150 m of elevation gain. It was a beautiful day, mostly sunny, with a dusting of snow on the mountains and the fall colours starting to surface. We saw a little with of frost, which got F really excited about the upcoming ski season. N slept the whole way and continued to sleep, while I had a celebratory hot chocolate in the chalet.

View from the peak to peak gondola

Lunch stop at Harmony Lake

My dad and I with Blackcomb in the background.