This year is my 4th (and final) year at McGill insyaAllah
and I've never been to Mont Tremblant before.
Last year, I almost went there (twice) but due to the health issue
and sad things that I went through last year, I had to stay at home.
This year, when I saw MSA McGill promoting Mont Tremblant Day-Trip event,
I decided to give it a chance, without actually decided on what to do there.
I looked upon activities to do at Mont Tremblant and
the one that I was interested in doing was the luge.
And luge was what I didn't do lol.
Last Saturday, I finally went to Mont Tremblant
with the MSA. While on the bus, I still couldn't decide on what to do there.
When we reached Mont Tremblant, the organizer divided us (those who wanted to hike) into groups:
1. Hard trail (4-5 hours)
2. Medium trail (2-3 hours)
3. Easy trail (1-2 hours)
I decided to go for the medium trail.
I waited for Iman and Zain to come
because they had to drive here since they couldn't reserve their spots with the bus.
They had to park further away from the place where people started to hike
and took a free shuttle bus there.
As I waited for them,
I saw the poster for Tonga Lumina
and asked the person at the information center
about the event.
When Iman and Zain arrived,
I told them about the idea
to go to Tonga Lumina
since I didn't think we'd ever come back to Mont Tremblant
till the last day of the event, Oct 14.
We googled about the event and we found:
"The Tonga Lumina illuminated trail is a sensory experience in the forest. This 1.5-km nocturnal walk takes place on a stone dust pathway at the heart of nature. To start off, visitors show up at the bottom of the Flying Mile chairlift that will take them up to the midway station where they will be led to the entrance of the trail. After taking visitors on a brief ascension, the trail slowly weaves its way down the hill through the woods, crosses streams and clearings. Participants can anticipate being on the pathway an average of one hour. Departures are continuous from sunset to closing, with a maximum of 300 people admitted per half-hour on the course." - Tonga Lumina
The entrance fee for an adult was $34 (including tax)
and we decided to just reserve our ticket since there were only 90 spot lefts for the first session, 19:30 and we didn't wanna go home late at night because it would be too dark to drive home.
We paid for the ticket before we started our hike.
Important thing before you hike,
take the freaking map!
At least that's what we did,
because last year, Iman and Zain were lost
and they didn't have any map with them and there's no signal in the forest.
So, take the map!
We decided to go on the easy trail, the purple one before deciding on what are other trails we
wanna take after.
We thought that we didn't wanna do any hard trails since we'd be hiking at night for the Tonga Lumina,
so any trails but the hard ones would do.
We took the purple trail - a trail along the mountain stream
Level of difficulty: Easy
One way: 1km, 30 minutes
and we did come across this waterfall.
The next viewpoint we saw was:
I was already satisfied with this view, to be honest.
But I gotta challenge myself more.
So we hiked more till we saw the intersection
between green and purple trail.
Green trail - from the base to the summit via Ruisseaux trail.
Level of difficulty = hard
One way: 3.5km, 2 hours
We decided to continue on the green trail,
and we told each other that if we couldn't finish it,
we'd just turn back.
We took a break, had some snacks and sip of water at the next waterfall we saw
before continuing the hike.
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| Iman and Zain |
The trail was hard,
it has many rocks that we had to climb,
muddy pavement because it was raining
and the trail was so steep.
I have the asthma problem
and hiking would either cause me to faint or almost die.
So the journey I took was really risky,
but I told myself to take this challenge,
and took one step at a time.
As we hiked, we saw a couple of groups and we would ask them
how long would it take to reach the top
and rough approximation somehow gave us hope.
We almost gave up at one point,
when Iman heard the sound of bear breathing and
we were the only humans in that area.
She freaked out, but Zain didn't wanna give up
and I, as always, was the indecisive one.
I'd just go with the flow.
But Zain convinced us that it was not animal and we waited for more people
to be at the same location before continuing the hike.
Every time we encountered the map,
it was like a checkpoint for us.
"Yes, we did 1.5km already"
"We're halfway there!"
"We're almost there!"
My personal benchmark was the house on top of the mountain.
Whenever I saw the house,
it gave me hope and assurance that we're almost there.
Sometimes, we had to cross the non-foresty area and searched
for the green signboard to ensure that we're not lost.
The signs on the trees were really helpful,
if there weren't there, we would have been lost.
At the end of the green trail,
I could hear my heart literally screaming of happiness!
It's like an achievement unlocked for me!
Other people had conquered Mount Everest
and all the hard mountains around the world,
the 5km mount already made me feel like
I've conquered the world!
I was so happy because I never thought
I would hike a mountain in my life
and I never thought that I could even do that
due to my health issues.
But I guess the ones inside the mind and the heart,
the willingness and determination that motivate
me to keep going.
We're welcomed by two rainbows when we reached the top
and a free Gondola ride after having our lunch with the great view!
 |
| The rainbow that welcomed us :) |
 |
| View from the Top |
This wouldn't also be possible without Iman and Zain
because they kept pushing me to move forward.
It's a really great teamwork I would say!
We took the gondola down
since it's free haha
and we met the rest of the group.
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| View from Gondola |
I realized that even though not everyone managed to reach the top,
it's good to know that everyone had fun!
Everyone had their own moments.
Some people came for the pictures,
for the food, for the luge, for the autumn colors,
for the hike, or for the view.
It doesn't matter whether one completes the hike or not
because in the end, it's everyone's individual achievement
and that's a personal matter.
When the MSA bus left,
I didn't.
I stayed for Tonga Lumina with Iman and Zain.
After dinner, we headed to the starting point of that event
and we're given amulets that changed colors based on the checkpoints.
Tbh, the beginning of the trail was kinda scary,
we saw no humans but amulets walking,
the music played sounded like a ritual
and we walked to a place,
where it felt like there'd be a human sacrifice ceremony.
But the multimedia projected on the trees of the forest
was well-designed!
The only thing we were disappointed about was the last checkpoint.
They failed to make us feel the need to come back.
So, I'd say Tonga Lumina was just a once in a lifetime thingy.
I'm glad I went, at least I knew how the event was like.
For some reasons, I wish there'd be fewer people
because at one point, we're just suffocating because there're too many humans
at a time.
Two of the things from bucket list checked!
- Hike Mont Tremblant in Fall
- Tonga Lumina
Post-hiking:
Stayed in bed till 5pm.
Took a long hot shower.
Glad there won't be any class on Monday because of the election.
Back to reality.
