Hace unos días decidimos aprovechar que estamos muy al norte y rodeados de montañas, hecho que facilita enormemente ir a ver el amanecer: el sol no sale antes de las 9 de la mañana así que tampoco hay que madrugar una barbaridad para ir a verlo. Por cierto, en la foto superior el Ninja que está a mi lado es Marina, y al parecer está sonriendo.
Nos levantamos, desayunamos y subimos hacia el lago done, sorpresa, nos encontramos a medio Shangai.
Lake Louise está congelado en invierno, pero en la zona donde desagua hacia del Louise Creek el agua está fluyendo constantemente por lo que el hielo no se acaba de formar. En ese punto, y teniendo en cuenta que Lake Louise está protegido del viento, se pueden ver las montañas reflejadas.
La misión era ir a ver el amanecer a ese punto en articular, ya que se podría ver como los rayos del sol iluminan las cimas de las montañas y la luz se refleja en los glaciares, con el pequeño trozo de lago sin congelar actuando de espejo.
Pues bien, parece que no somos los únicos con ideas de este tipo. Llegamos a Lake Louise con tiempo suficiente para buscar un buen sitio y esperar, pero no mucho, que aquí hace un frío que pela.
En el lugar que teníamos pensado ya había una reunión de fotógrafos amateurs chinos con cámaras ya medio congeladas más caras que un coche (a saber desde cuándo llevaba esa gente ahí), con filtros en las lentes, trípodes con más tecnología que los que usan los topógrafos en los teodolitos, maletas con recambios para la cámara, chaquetas para expediciones antárticas y un silencio sepulcral.
Esto es divertido, si cambiásemos a estos chinos por españoles, italianos o incluso canadienses la escena habría sido probablemente diferente: en lugar de personas quietas y silenciosas haciendo guardia tras sus extremadamente caras cámaras como si fuesen francotiradores de élite de los Navy SEAL americanos, habríamos visto las cámaras listas a un lado y la gente hablando del tiempo en un círculo al otro completamente ajenos al sufrimiento de sus cámaras no tan caras.
Pero lo que había ahí eran chinos de élite listos para robarle el alma al sol, y ello requiere silencio sepulcral. Hasta que, evidentemente, llegan las dos amigas chinas de unos veintipocos años de edad que viajan por el mundo, que todo mochilero que se precie ha encontrado alguna vez y por ello las teme, que son algo así como una serie de catastróficas desdichas andantes. Llegan a una zona con dos palmos de nieve con zapatos de tacón, llevan las cámaras en maletas rosas de Hello Kitty y, al intentar estacionar el trípode se caen estando a punto de causar un efecto dominó con todos su compatriotas. A estas dos Chinas del Apocalipsis nos las hemos encontrado en Nepal (las que secaban la parte exterior de la mochila con kleenex cuando llovía), en Nueva Zelanda, en Australia, en Indonesia e incluso en Filipinas. Verlas venir genera un desasosiego peor que ver a un gato negro cruzarse en tu camino mientras pasas por debajo de una escalera derramando un tarro de sal sobre un espejo que se rompe.
En fin, todos los allí presentes sobrevivimos a esas dos desgracias vivientes y pudimos ver un amanecer muy bonito. Después de tomar las fotos de rigor nos dimos cuenta de que no sentíamos los pies de lo fríos que estaban así que nos fuimos hacia el Fairmont Chateau a recuperar un poco de temperatura y luego bajamos caminando hacia el pueblo de Lake Louise.
Enrique & Marina
English version
SUN RISES IN LAKE LOUISE
A few days ago we went to see the sunrise. Lake Louise is located at a very northern latitude and surrounded by mountains which delays quite a lot the time that the sun starts shinning. Now, which is the middle of the winter, the sun comes out at around 8.30. That’s actually awesome because you don’t have to wake up very early to see it.
We woke up, had breakfast and went up the lake where, surprise!, we found about half of the population of Shangai already there.
The Lake itself is frozen the whole winter so no reflections. But there’s a tiny patch of water that stays liquid during the cold months. It’s the outlet that feeds Louise creek and probably due to the constant flow it never freezes. At that particular spot and because the bowl of the lake is very well sheltered from any wind, you can see the reflections of the mountains pretty much always.
The mission of the day was to see the firsts lights of the day bathing the tips of the snow capped mountains and how the glaciers sparkle with the first sunlight and maybe see all this reflected in the patch of water acting as a mirror.
We made it to the Lake Louise with enough time to find a nice spot but not too long ahead because you don’t want to be waiting in this painful cold for too much. But unfortunately we were not the only people with that mission for the day.
In our chosen site there already was a conference of Asian photographers. There was more money worth in photography gear in that little section of the lake shore than in any good detail store. We wonder for how long they had been there setting up. They all had strange filters for their lenses, tripods that could probably be good enough for land surveying tasks, weekend-sized suitcases with extra lenses, filters, batteries and who knows what else. Their outfit was up to the standard too: Antarctic expedition jackets, fur gloves and boots that could easily come from an outer space mission. And, for a change, they were all very quiet.
If we picture the same situation with Italians, Spaniards or even Canadians it would have been so different. Instead of a quiet group of people minding their own very expensive cameras objectives like American Navy SEAL snippers stalking over their victims, the situation would have probably been a display of different middle range cameras ready to shot in one side and one or several little groups of people loudly discussing the weather (particularly loud if the speaker is from the Mediterranean coast) or last night’s dinner among themselves and not looking too worried about their not-so-fancy cameras.
But what we had there was definitively the elite of the Asian amateur photographers, up to steal the Sun’s soul if required to get the perfect holiday photo. And this needs silence. Fair enough, now I’m serious. A good picture takes work, effort and concentration.
That was all fine despite the couple of time that we were asked to move because someone needed that particular bit of the earth’s surface to be clear. Until here they came, the classic couple of young Asian girlfriends backpacking the world that we all have encountered and fear. Loudly they made it to the shore when the sun had already been out for a while (a.k.a. late) with their pink little trainers and their Hello Kitty suitcases. The two girlfriends produced tripods to be set in the snow, action which could have caused a domino effect to the other Asian tripods but luckily didn’t. We’ve encountered these two girls of the Apocalypses in pretty much all the countries we’ve visited. They’re probably not exactly the same couple all the time following us but they could be family. When they come along our reaction is always the same: it’s time to run away.
This plus that we were happy enough with the pictures we took and, overall, that we started to feel our fingers and toes numb with cold meant it was the time to really head off. Well, actually head into the Fairmont to try to get the mobility of our extremities back. That was pretty important not only because we don’t want to lose our body parts but also because we needed our feet to walk back to the village.
Enrique & Marina
